


Were I That Burning Star

by californianNostalgia



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Fluff, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, POV Multiple, Post-Canon, a lot of godly angst, all the gods listed in the character tags get a pov, apollo interacts with a bunch of gods, slightly au because the gods are more civil with each other than in canon...?, some other gods interact with each other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-25 21:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13843809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/californianNostalgia/pseuds/californianNostalgia
Summary: An old panic gripped me—the breathless fear of being forgotten, being lost. Would anyone remember me when I was gone? Would someone think to lay a flower down on my grave and say some fond nothings like, “Was a pretty cool guy, that Lester,” while wiping off a single dramatic tear rolling down their cheek?Oh, who was I kidding. So what if no one remembered? There wasn’t much I was proud to be remembered by anyway.After defeating Python and bringing down Nero, Phoebus Apollo reclaims his godhood. He is glorious once more. But for some reason, he can't quite make himself go back to how things were before.(A Character Study of Various Gods, including but not limited to: Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares, Athena, Hephaestus, Dionysus, and maybe Zeus)





	1. The Whole Time I Was Hoping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short prologue. Apollo POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter titles taken from Anna Akhmatova's poem.

Python was defeated. Nero had dissolved. We’d won.  
  
This was usually the part where a random god suddenly appeared to yell “Well done!” and blasted the remaining bad guys to smithereens. The important stuff was all finished. The gods could intervene now.  
  
No godly backup came.  
  
Monsters and freak warriors just kept coming and coming. Their bosses were gone, but I guess that didn’t mean they’d go _poof_ too. How typical. I hoped the others weren’t doing as bad as I was.  
  
How bad, you ask? Well. I was alone in the midst of an enemy mob. My bow was broken. My magical instrument was smashed. I was so drained of power I didn’t think I’d be able to muster up a single musical note if my life depended on it.  
  
Oh, and I was pretty sure I was dying from internal bleeding.  
  
I stumbled backwards, clutching at my wounded side in a halfhearted effort to hold some of my insides in. The pain was blinding, and it kept getting worse with each heartbeat that pounded through my achingly mortal body. Something was definitely broken. Or torn. Or ruptured. Maybe all three. Honestly, I couldn’t believe I was still standing.  
  
My enemies were taking their time, closing in slowly as I tried my best to hobble away. They were laughing. It sounded like the world’s most horrific marching band, and it was an absolute insult to my ears. I couldn’t believe this horror was the last kind of symphony I would ever hear. I wanted to put in a request for a better funeral dirge. No, wait, I wanted something better than that.  
  
I wanted to keep existing.  
  
An old panic gripped me—the breathless fear of being forgotten, being lost. Would anyone remember me when I was gone? Would someone think to lay a flower down on my grave and say some fond nothings like, “Was a pretty cool guy, that Lester,” while wiping off a single dramatic tear rolling down their cheek?  
  
Oh, who was I kidding. So what if no one remembered? There wasn’t much I was proud to be remembered by anyway.  
  
I’d been laboring my way up a gentle incline to get away from the monsters. When I reached the top, my knees gave out. I dug my fingers into the bark of the lone tree that stood on the hill, and when I failed to drag myself up, I realized,  _This is it_.  
  
I looked out at the swarm of monsters rushing forward to finish me off. I thought of Thalia, how she’d taken her last stand on the crest of Half-Blood Hill. Maybe dying on a hilltop was a Child of Zeus thing.  
  
Looking back, I think I was pretty okay with letting it end like that.  
  
Then I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.  
  
I knew what that meant. It was a terror engraved into the very bones of my being, carved there by experience and fear. But recognizing the threat didn’t mean I could avoid it, weak and human as I was.

Before I could make any sort of effort to throw myself out of the way, lightning struck down on me.

Jagged spikes of electricity ravaged through me, frying me inside out. The squishy insides of my human body simultaneously malfunctioned. They rebelled against me, everything beneath my skin suddenly committed suicide, imploding all over the place, ripping bones and tearing skin. It was more pain than I had ever known, worse than any eternal suffering I could imagine. I opened my mouth to scream, but all that came out from my throat was globs of hot blood. My vision had whited out. I couldn’t breathe.

I was burning, drowning, dying, and all I could think was: _Why? What did I do wrong now?_  
  
By Olympus. I didn’t remember lightning bolts hurting this much.  
  
Then, as suddenly as it had come, the pain stopped.

Gasping for breath, I realized I had not dissolved into nothing. I still had a sense of self. 

I was also on my hands and knees in a puddle of my own blood.

Yes, I know, gross. Strangely, though, instead of feeling like a week-old piece of puny mortal steak, I felt . . . fine. More fine than I had felt in a long time, actually.

My enemies had paused in their advancements, studying me with a hint of weariness. I could practically see them thinking, _how is this guy not barbecue right now?_ Which was a very good question. I wanted it answered myself.

It took me a bit more time to realize that my nose was steadily dripping blood into the puddle, and that the new blood, which should have been a bright, human red, was the color of gold.  
  
_Oh_.  
  
**_Oh_**.  
  
I think I started giggling, then. Tears started rolling down my face as I gasped for breath, choking on the clots of blood lodged in my throat, laughing and crying and unable to figure out why I was doing either.  
  
There had been no godly backup, because I _was_ the godly backup.  
  
With molten gold dripping down my mouth and soaking through my clothes, I experimentally reached for all the godly power I could get ahold of. A reckless sort of thrill came over me when an unending reel of energy responded.  
  
This was the power I had lost, the power that had been wrenched away from me. This was my blazing fire of an essence returned to me at last, the heat and light and life that was Phoebus Apollo.  
  
Finally, finally, _finally_ —I was me again.

The leftover evil underlings noticed the golden blood a beat too late. I laughed at them through the thick taste of blood and tears as they turned to flee, saw understanding etched in their fear.   
  
Then I exploded in a supernova.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my incredibly self-indulgent love letter to the abominations that are the Olympian gods of Rick Riordan's creation. Updates may be sporadic, but I'll try my best.


	2. My Silence Would Fit Yours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aftermath. Apollo POV.

They did the ceremony thing again where twelve unimpressed Olympians sat on giant thrones and called the surviving heroes forth, to praise and reward them for their bravery.  
  
I wasn’t allowed to attend.  
  
“ _What?”_ I demanded when I was informed of this. I tried my best not to sound furious, but I suspect it didn’t work. “ _Why not?”_  
  
“Father and I thought you’d spent too much time with the heroes to remain objective,” Athena said, unruffled. “As this Council is meant to represent the general opinion of all twelve attendees, we cannot have your favoritism be in blatant display. We, as the head of Olympus, stand for fair judgment. You are unfit to be a part of it today.”

"I thought these things needed twelve gods in attendance!"

"Uncle Hades will be attending in your stead. It's a temporary measure."  
  
I gritted my teeth. “Am I not to bestow a single blessing?”  
  
“One small blessing each wouldn’t be problematic.” Athena had always delivered her logic calmly. She was infuriating that way. “Just don’t do it publicly. And no personal contact with any of them.” Her stormy gray eyes were freezing. “You know the rules, Apollo.”  
  
_Don’t say anything, don’t say anything—_ I bit down on my tongue so hard I tasted ichor. “Of course, Athena,” I muttered.

When the ceremony started, I perched on a hidden alcove set above the Hall of Twelve like a good little sun god, and stayed very, very quiet.  
  
I don’t recall much of what was said. I just focused on the faces standing in the hall, drinking them in with a greedy desperation. (My friends, my family, my _saviors_.) There was a good chance I would never be able to see them face to face again. God-mortal interactions were severely frowned upon at the best of times, and I’d recently used up about a millennia’s worth of mortal interaction privileges. I was essentially—what was it called again? Oh, right— _grounded_. That was my reward for saving the world. Yippee.  
  
Yes, I know, I had my godhood back, so why was I being such a whiny baby? Look, that didn’t count. Godhood had always been mine, from the very first moments of my existence. My rightful powers being returned to me was no reward. It was an end to a punishment.  
  
This new restriction hanging over me felt like the beginning of another one.

I hugged my knees to my chest and wished I could be standing with them.

Don't get me wrong. During my stint as a human teenager, I'd learned what being a mortal meant: pain, hardship, certain death around every corner waiting to drag you to the Underworld. It meant acne, flabs, and transcendent entities that considered you little more than playthings or pawns. I didn't want that.

Being a god meant power, glory, eternal life, and a world spread below your feet. It was obvious which was the better option.

But . . . mortals were allowed to befriend who they chose and love who they wanted. They were allowed to swear their entire lives to someone, give away promises of protection or devotion if they wanted to. There were always twists of fate, bitter endings, and unrequited feelings involved. But they could  _choose_  to stay with the people they cherished, and that was something I didn't have. That was something I wasn't allowed, and I envied them for it.

There was so much I wanted to say to the heroes. A thank-you to everyone who got involved in my problems. A promise to my children that I'd always cheer for them, whatever they went on to do in their lives. An apology for Rachel Elizabeth Dare, and an assurance that things would be more or less foreseeable now. A final thank-you to Meg McCaffrey, who'd been the best master ever.

I thought about Athena's stormy eyes, I thought about lightning bolts, and I kept my silence.

There was no victory feast. Zeus probably felt no need to hold a feast for yet another one of my colossal messes. The heroes rode the elevator down to the mortal world, no doubt being mentally bombarded by Olympian advertisements.

I'd done an advertisement once. I think I wore bell-bottom shorts for it. I hoped the ad had been replaced with a Hephaestus TV commercial, because the thought of demigods seeing me in bell-bottom shorts no longer brought me much joy. 

It most likely had been replaced as soon as I was banished, anyway. The same principal was true for magazines and elevator ads—no one wanted a model with a record on the front covers.

When the gods began leaving as well, I dropped down from my hiding place and landed lightly on the marble floor. I had someone I needed to speak with.

A few of the Olympians acknowledged my existence. Hermes congratulated me on my return to immortality. Ares slapped my back and loudly approved of my victory against Python. Aphrodite wanted to know when I could do a gods-night-out with her. I slipped past them, muttering a few halfhearted answers, and managed to catch up to Hades before he could leave the Hall.

"Yes?" he said, in that I-can't-wait-to-get-out-of-here voice he often used on Mount Olympus.

"I, um . . . ." I gulped. _Come on, talk_ , I thought. _This is important._

I asked him if he would allow everyone who'd died on my behalf during the final battle into Elysium.

He sighed deeply. "Contrary to popular belief, there are actual systems to these things. Bypassing Judgement is considered special treatment. In any case, those _heroes_ are most likely going to end up in Elysium whether I interfere or not."

"I know, but . . . ." I hesitated. "I don't want them to think I forgot about the people who died for me."

He studied me quizzically, then sighed again. "Very well. I'll get it done."

I felt like one of the tight, bumpy knots in my stomach had been unraveled. "Thank you."

As he was turning away, I remembered something else. "Oh, and another thing."

"Yes?" His expression said, _If you keep delaying me from getting out of here I am setting the Furies on you._

"Thanks. For your kid, Nico. He's kind of awesome."

For a brief moment, his icy demeanor softened into something grudgingly lukewarm. "Ah. Well. Your child is a good influence on him."

I couldn't help but grin at the compliment. Fatherly pride was an insidious phenomenon. 

Then a hand came down on my shoulder, and all thoughts of fatherly pride were driven out of my mind.

"Son," Zeus said. "A moment."  
  
_Son_. The word struck me as . . . out of place.

Hades left, wearing his stony mask once more. I slowly faced my father, noticing belatedly that apart from me and the king of the gods, the Hall was empty.  
  
Zeus appraised me in expectant silence. Perhaps he was waiting for me to say something like “yes, father” or “yes, lord” or maybe “yes, o supreme ruler of all that is awesome."

I couldn't think of anything to say.  
  
After a length of awkward silence, Zeus took it upon himself to get the ball rolling. "You did well," he said gruffly. "I see I made the right choice."  
  
I . . . didn't like how he said that. What did he mean by "right choice"? Did he mean the choice to have me go down to the mortal world to stop Python? Or the choice not to have me erased from existence for all eternity because I’d gotten on his wrong side again?  
  
True, I might've deserved most of that. I’d been kind of a huge jerk and an incredible idiot, which I understood now. But that didn't mean I felt okay about him walking up to me like nothing had ever happened.   
  
I'd seen demigods interact with their human parents. Hell, I'd seen them interact with their _godly_ parents, which had left a strange feeling in my stomach. Most parents didn't turn their kid into shrubbery or a puddle of seawater, even when their children were being infuriatingly annoying.  
  
I remembered lightning bolts, of falling from the sky. I remembered the countless times he'd ignored my prayers, my pleading, my begs for forgiveness. 

See, I'd had time to do a lot of thinking about this, and I'd arrived at one conclusion: I didn't like my father.  
  
I . . . rather  _hated_ him, to be honest. I hated his voice, his power, and his confidence that nothing he did was ever wrong. I hated the way he never gave a thought to the puny mortal lives getting extinguished every day underneath his feet while he lounged on his throne, flipping through the channels of Hephaestus TV in permanent disinterest.  
  
I hated how it all reminded me of how I'd been before. I hated that all this hating made me wonder if I was a horrible kid for hating my dad.

. . . It was complicated.  
  
I ground out a "thank you" through gritted teeth.  
  
His brows furrowed. "Apollo," he said, and his voice was booming. It felt like giant drums were shaking me down to my very core.  
  
Suddenly I thought I wouldn’t be able to stand hearing one more word out of his mouth without literally exploding in his face or doing something equally drastic.    
  
“Uh, I—really need to go," I stammered, in a burst of astounding eloquence. Then I fled from Olympus without a backward glance.

 

* * *

 

Being a god again was confusing. I could sense my essence spread out across the world—each tiny drop of consciousness was a loud voice in my head, carrying out tasks that were fundamentally important to the preservation of the universe, each one constantly clamoring for attention. It was unnerving. They were like selfish goldfishes screeching at me to notice them in tinny cartoon voices.

I found that leaving them well alone did the trick. They knew why they were here. They knew exactly what their jobs were. But unlike them, my biggest chunk of self didn't seem to be able to figure out what to do.

All I had was a long list of places I was banned from and people I wasn't allowed to see.  
  
Not visiting my friends and family at Camp Half-Blood was definitely the hardest rule I'd had to follow yet, especially since I made an effort to hear every single one of their prayers. Whether it be a question after my well-being or a simple hello, I was careful not to miss anything. The prayers (they were more like incorporeal voicemails) smelled strongly of barbecue and M&M packets. I neatly folded up the memory of each one and placed them on a shelf in the vast library of my mind, mentally labeling the shelf  _My Incorporeal Greeting Card Collection_.

Somewhere in the passing millennia I’d started to grow tired of fleeting moments and temporary flames. I hadn’t taken care to archive all I would have liked to remember. I regretted that now.

. . . There was a lot of stuff I regretted.  
  
I tried to occupy myself in other ways so I'd stop thinking about mortals.

I crammed myself in between the crowds at Taylor Swift concerts and rock festivals, hoping music would provide ample distraction. I set up mock shooting ranges in the African savanna and practiced shooting from ten miles away. I shut myself in a medical lab at Stanford and tried my hand at twenty-first century bio-chem.

The blood-pounding excitement shared by thousands of people gathered solely to celebrate good music did _nothing_ to me. Shooting arrows at the horizon became too boring too fast. I was kicked out of the labs for mixing up my samples, which was a disgustingly elementary mistake that had me shivering in shame for weeks.  
  
Sometimes I sat on grassy hills in the middle of nowhere with a lyre in my hands, not sure what song I'd been meaning to play and letting hours go by in silence. Sometimes I visited a certain antechamber of trees that marked the entrance for the Grove of Dodona, careful not to run into any demigods, and spent the night staring at a patch of burned ground where six dryads had once sacrificed themselves for a fallen god, who'd had nothing to offer except a pathetic apology.  
  
Sometimes I drove my sun chariot across the heavens myself—as in, the biggest chunk of "me" instead of the tiny inkling of myself that was usually in charge of the daily task—trying to work up some satisfaction from flying. It was nice to fly again. I was finally free from the stupid rule called gravity that had once bound me down so cruelly. But it wasn’t quite the unbridled joyride I remembered it to be.  
  
I began to receive texts from the Nine Muses, which I ignored. Then Aphrodite, then Hermes, then Athena and a bunch of gods who apparently could not keep their noses out of another god’s business started bombarding me with their own texts, which I also ignored. After a while my phone became really obnoxious with all the ringing it was doing, so I switched my chariot to Full-On Sun mode and threw my godly iPhone into its glorious nuclear depths. I barely felt any satisfaction from watching it get incinerated.  
  
Around this point I began wondering if I was . . . messed up somehow? But I couldn’t put a finger on the "how" part of it.  
  
I mean, normally I  _enjoyed_ watching the sun burn, especially if I was burning something annoying in its fires. (Who doesn’t enjoy a good bonfire? Admit it, burning stuff is fun. If there's one thing mortals and immortals have in common, it's that we are fascinated by destruction.)  
  
The sun itself was definitely the best part of the "burning annoying things out of my life" process, though. I’d always loved how it wrapped the whole world in its light and warmth. Maybe because it included me in its embrace, and I could pretend I was getting a hug in the form of heat radiating off of a big ball of fiery gas. I never got tired of that—those fake, imaginary hugs.  
  
Until, apparently, I did. Turned out fake hugs from a star were not as good as real ones from a chubby daughter of Demeter.

Whatever. It wasn't important. I was a god again! Everything was awesome!  
  
Time crawled on.

I gave up on not thinking about mortals (since I kept failing at it) and attempted to direct my interest into productivity. Athena had told me I was allowed to give away one small blessing for each of my demigod friends, so I thought about what I could give to them.

I thought about it for days, then weeks. I came up blank. I ended up just putting off the "what to get my friends" problem entirely, because one blessing might be the last thing I could ever do for them and I wanted it to be special, and perfect, and the looming finality that would hit me after I gave away the blessings scared me too much.  
  
I took to sitting on the trees in random parks and watching the mortals. Thousands of them passed by with nary a glance in my direction—each living their own complicated lives full of love and mischief, their mortality rapidly burning away at the time they had left. They burned so unbearably bright—with laughter, with sorrow, with hope for a different future. I wondered if I was that bright when I was a supernova. Somehow I wasn't so sure.  
  
Several months passed this way, I think. I didn't really bother keeping track of the days. What did it matter, when I would keep existing and existing well after all I knew was rendered to dust and the concept of time ceased to carry meaning?  
  
It might be obvious by now that I wasn't in the best of moods.  
  
I was sitting on the branch of my favorite maple tree in Central Park, feeling the last vestiges of orange and yellow soak away from Zeus's domain and retreat into myself (a glorious sunset, if I do say so myself), when something unexpected happened.  
  
A tiny four-year-old walked by my tree, hand in hand with a dark-haired woman. The child's chubby legs were inexperienced, but she made up for it with determination. As the two passed below my tree, the girl glanced up at the branches in passing. Her eyes widened in curiosity.  
  
I stayed where I was, secure in the knowledge that the Mist was wrapped tightly around me. She was probably looking at the bird sharing the branch with me at the moment. The bird was rather magnificent—a rare sight in the midst of Manhattan.  
  
The little girl stopped in her tracks. She waved. "Hi!" Her smile was huge.  
  
I got the strangest feeling she wasn't addressing my neighbor the bird.  
  
Slowly, I pointed at myself and mouthed, _Me?_  
  
Her smile grew wider.  
  
I tried wriggling my fingers at her in a tentative wave. She giggled.  
  
The woman with her was looking up as well. “Wow. That is one handsome bird,” she said. "I see why you'd stop to greet her." She had a lovely voice, strong and melodic. I wondered if she sang with that voice.  
  
The child seemed to realize that her companion could not see the golden-blond teenage boy sitting on the maple tree. Her face scrunched up in confusion.

Before she could ask me about it, I winked at her, and pressed a finger to my lips.  
  
She tilted her head, then gave me an almost imperceptible nod.  
  
"Come on, Mommy," she said, pulling on the woman’s hand, who was waving at the bird. "Ice cream!"  
  
The mother laughed. “Right, right. Hold your horses." They made their way down the path, toward the crosswalk.  
  
I looked up at the sky. For the first time since I'd reclaimed my immortality, I didn't feel like I was suffocating. The night would be a clear one. Maybe I would call my sister.  
  
Wait. I’d burned my phone.  
  
Maybe I could try out a phone booth. I'd never used a phone booth before, but I was sure I could figure out something. A sun god could do anything if he put his mind to it, because he was awesome and nice little girls liked him better than some Central Park bird with impressive plumage.  
  
Distracted by this sudden and illusory feeling of _contentment_ , I wasn’t looking when it happened. I missed the fatal moment. I missed my chance.  
  
The crash sounded freakish to my ears. There was no crunch of metal, no scream of engines. Just a soft, dull _schtump_. Then screams.  
  
I jumped down from my maple tree and nearly flew over to the crosswalk in my haste, barely remembering to clutch at ribbons of Mist and pull it along with me. People were yelling in horror. One dark-haired woman in particular screamed and screamed and screamed as she cried, screamed like every sound she made was ripping her heart out.  
  
When I saw a small girl lying on the ground, I stopped short. My head, vast though it was with godly knowledge, could not comprehend the dented motorcycle, the puddle of blood, and the broken form of the child who'd shared a secret with me moments ago.  
  
Her eyes were blank in death.  
  
I think I screamed then—screamed with the mortals around me. Except I couldn't open my mouth. I could only scream silently, in my head.

Then I remembered: _I'm a god. I can save her._  
  
I reached for her blindly. Rational thought had escaped me, but that didn't matter. I didn't care for it anyways. Nothing mattered except the child.  
  
I would bring her back, consequences be damned. I would heal her wound and dissolve the hold of death, and Uncle Hades would just have to deal with it. I would see her smile again, and this time I would be the one to tell her that her secret would be safe with me.  
  
Someone grabbed my arm and hauled me back. I tried to wrench away, but the firm hand closed around my wrist wouldn’t budge. I spun around, rage making my vision go red, more than ready to blast this foolhardy offender to Tartarus.  
  
I found myself staring at a black-haired teenage girl wearing a silver circlet. ". . . Artemis?"  
  
She looked annoyed, frustrated—and maybe the tiniest bit worried. Out of the corner of my mind, I wondered what kind of horrible danger she was meddling in this time, if she'd sought me out herself to ask something of me.  
  
"Brother," she said. She kind of sounded like she did when she was calming down injured animals. "We need to talk."  
  
I blinked at her, then tried to slip out of her grasp. "All right. Just let me—"  
  
"I mean _now_ ," she pressed, holding on harder. "Right now."  
  
“But . . . .” I faltered, and realized she was telling me not to revive the small girl lying on the concrete before us.  
  
Anger flared up inside me. "I'm bringing her back."  
  
She looked at me in puzzlement, as if she couldn't fathom what was going on inside my head. "She is mortal. Mortals die. We cannot interfere with death, you know that."  
  
I wanted to ignore her. I could feel power already gathering in my fingertips, sparking in anticipation. One touch. One touch could bring this child back, who had been kind enough to wave to a stranger sitting in a tree, alone.  
  
Artemis's grip grew viselike. "We cannot interfere with the work of the Fates," she said. A note of desperation had entered her voice. "You cannot save every mortal you come across. It is not what we are meant to do."

. . . She was right. I knew she was right. There was a reason for the rules. If every god did whatever struck their fancy whenever it struck them, the universe would never be able to stand the strain of its reality being ripped apart and the world would dissolve into chaos. I myself had punished demigods who'd dared to go against the Fates' design with the utmost severity.  
  
I wasn’t okay with letting the child die. Some things I would never be okay with. But what could I do here? Was I willing to break the rules for this?  
  
I already knew the answer to that.  
  
I was useless.  
  
All the tension drained out of me. I felt like turning into a puddle of tears (literally), or curling into a ball and sleeping away several centuries. I was beginning to see the perks of hibernation. Bears were obviously wise creatures.  
  
Artemis seemed visibly relieved at my deflation. Her hold on my arm relaxed, allowing feeling to return to my godly fingers. "Father would approve," she said.  
  
"I don't care what Zeus would think." The words were out of my mouth before I realized it.   
  
Thunder rumbled overhead. I threw a glare up at the sky. 

Artemis stared at me.

I couldn't think. I had no energy left. I had nothing left. “Fine," I said, turning my back on the dead child. "Let's talk."  
  
I tried to shut out a mother's screams of grief as I followed my sister away from the site of brutal mortality.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW this was hard to write. I nearly threw out about two-thirds of what comes before the line break. Kinda glad I didn't. Writing is HARD.  
> Thanks for all the comments and attention! It's too flattering XD (I'm sorry if I don't immediately reply. I sort of hit my limit on replying to nice people after going through about two comments and just squeak and cower in my bed while reading the rest. Rest assured, though, I LOVED all the positive feedback I got! Fellow Riordanverse lovers, you are awesome.)  
> Next chapter should be Artemis POV. Let's see how long this one takes.  
> You can come ask questions to [my tumblr](http://californiannostalgia.tumblr.com).
> 
>  
> 
> (Edit: Whoops. Fixed some stuff.)


	3. Exclamations Would Gently Float

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honesty. Artemis POV, third person.

Artemis watched in dispassionate interest as a group of armed human males followed a pheasant through the woods.

A man had been trying to defile a homeless girl, dragging her to a van parked in the shadows of a small alleyway. The girl had screamed and cried and fought back as hard as she could. The girl had prayed to higher powers, begging for someone to come help her.

Artemis had heard. Artemis had answered.

The girl had accepted Artemis's offer to join the Hunt, and was currently being fussed over by a number of Hunters. The offending man was now a pheasant, released into a forest where some mortals were wandering about, looking for things to shoot at.

Artemis thought it apt that this gross excuse of a man would be executed by his own kind. Some humans did not deserve to walk the earth. 

Peppered sounds of gunfire echoed on the tree trunks. The pheasant went down, flapping pathetically. From her seat on an oak, Artemis heard the animal exhale its last breath.

In a burst of silvery light, the goddess transported herself away from the execution grounds.

 

* * *

 

Athena came to visit Artemis in the Mongolian steppes, where she and her Hunters had set up camp. 

"Have you seen Apollo recently?" Athena asked, accepting a thermos of tea from an awed Hunter. 

"No." She and Apollo tended to stay well out of each other's prowling grounds when there was no emergency. "Why?"

Athena took a sip of tea and informed her of Apollo's current movements: how he hadn't been seen on Olympus since his return, how he wasn't replying to the other gods trying to contact him. "If you could seek him out," she suggested. "Our fellow immortals are getting . . . concerned."

Artemis took a drink from her own thermos. The suutei tsai was precisely to her taste, its creamy saltiness lingering on her tongue. In the distance, the rest of her maidens were playing a complicated human-and-wolf version of soccer that involved four frisbees, two balls, and three makeshift goal posts rising out of the grass. Judging by the hollers of joy that crescendoed over the howling winds, their newest recruit had just scored.

She had kept one distracted eye on Apollo's quest, as she did with all quests when the fate of the world was hanging in the balance. She would be lying if she claimed not to have been worried. She'd even bothered to check on Apollo's progress whenever she remembered to. But it seemed to have turned out all right. She knew he was fine, she'd glimpsed him hiding in the ceiling during the Council of Twelve. Figuring he’d come visit her sooner or later, she'd returned to her Hunters, and that had been that.

She wasn't a fan of neither parties nor conversations with stuck-up gods. She hadn't realized Apollo was avoiding all Olympian contact, because she herself preferred to do the same.

Then again, perhaps his continued absence from her life should have clued her in earlier. Normally a month didn't go by before he popped in unannounced to annoy her with freestyle poetry.

She took another sip. "You say he is ignoring all gods. What makes you think he will see me?"

To which Athena replied, "You are his sister, are you not?"

 _So are you_ , she entertained saying, just for the sake of arguing with Wisdom. She didn't voice the thought. 

Athena thanked her for the tea and departed soon after. Artemis spent the rest of the day advising her Hunters on frisbee-soccer tactics.

She didn't go find Apollo immediately. Her twin was . . . a challenging presence to be around. He had an annoying habit of hitting on her Hunters and insisting he was older than her. He smiled too big, relentlessly composed terrible works of verse, and was consistently egotistical. Being in his company could feel like withstanding the brunt of the sun's harshest rays. Working up the willingness to see him took her the better part of a week.

On a day of clear skies, she discarded the form of a twelve-year-old in favor of a teenager's body, because she recalled Apollo wearing the visage of a boy turned freshly sixteen at the Council meeting, young and deceptively mortal. She was hoping her outward appearance would encourage Apollo to think of her as his equal. 

She told her Hunters they could go after whatever beast they wished to hunt during her absence, as long as they were certain no one would be hurt. _Zöe_ , she thought. _Bianca. My brave, wonderful girls, my girls I couldn't protect_.

"Don't worry, my lady," Thalia Grace said, ever reliable. "We'll be fine."

"I have no doubt," said Artemis.

Her Lieutenant was grieving. "I've grieved before," Thalia had said, when Artemis asked if she needed some time away from duty. "I know how to grieve without endangering the people depending on me."

Artemis could not be prouder—or sadder—for her Huntress.

After a last round of reminders and assurances, she left her girls in her trusted half-sister's charge and finally began to chase the faint glow of gold in the peripheries of her senses. She did not know whether to call it a blessing or a curse, but unless there was interference from a higher power, both she and Apollo could always tell where the other was. It was an instinct, born within them the moment they emerged into the world, immortal and glorious.

She found Apollo standing over the dead body of a child in Central Park, eyes disturbingly empty and fingers crackling with restorative power. When she grabbed his wrist—when he whirled around, wreathed in wrath and despair heretofore unknown to her—part of her was taken aback enough to think, _This is not my brother_.

 _No_ , she immediately told that treacherous part. _I know him. Rage does not change who he is_.

"Brother," she said, dropping her voice down to a pitch that soothed. "We need to talk."

 

* * *

 

Artemis led Apollo away from the noise and bustle of mankind, deciding that the deeper parts of California's redwoods were a good place for privacy. She scaled the tallest of the behemoths in seconds and took her perch on one of the thick branches. These trees were old, their roots stretched out and their trunks ever-growing to awe-inspiring heights. She pressed her palm to the rough bark and whispered a blessing; one wild, ancient creature to another.

Apollo floated up and settled himself on a bough adjacent to hers. He snagged a stray leaf from the spring wind and refused to meet her eyes.

He looked like a teenage boy, as she'd expected. His features were flawless in youth and beauty, his blonde hair resting in soft curls on the nape of his neck. Inexplicably, she was reminded of a golden deer—which was ridiculous, because golden deer were pure animals and she wholeheartedly liked their existence, whereas Apollo was, well . . . not. It must be the hair, she decided, giving his fluffy yellow mop a perfunctory stink eye.

"So," she began, breaking the thick wall of silence that had been present ever since their short conversation in Central Park. "I heard you haven't stepped foot in Olympus, barring the day you returned. Care to explain why?"  
  
He kept his eyes on the leaf. "I didn't feel like it."  
  
Her eyebrows went up.

The last time he'd returned from mortality, he'd thrown a concert the following week and invited every god and goddess he could get word to. It had been recorded thereafter as the biggest, rowdiest Olympian gathering ever to take place. Countless songs were sung and butchered. Wine was followed by more wine. Dionysus took a special joy in spreading the wonders of alcohol to all, and many left drunk and humming.

When she compared that concert to how he was currently acting, Artemis could understand why the other gods were concerned about Apollo's recent conduct. "Is that also the reason why you haven't been taking any calls?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe as in?"

"Maybe as in I burned my phone. And I didn't feel like it."

" _Apollo_."

"What do you want, Artemis?" he suddenly snapped. "What do you need from me?"

She frowned. "A straightforward answer would be nice. Why would you ask that?"

"Because you never come find me unless you need something," he said, and he sounded so, so bitter, "and I don't think an interrogation counts. Tell me what you're here for, I'll give it to you. Just . . . make it fast."

 _I don't come find him only when I need something_ , she thought, slightly offended. _Do I?_ "Perhaps I'm here because I want to know how you are doing."

There was incredulity in his stare. "You want to know how I'm _doing_? After all these months?" He paused. "Who sent you?"

Artemis bristled. "No one _sent_ me."

"No, I didn't mean—did someone ask you to find me?"

". . . Athena had her concerns."

"Athena," he grumbled. "Of course."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

Artemis crossed her arms. "You're being more irritating than usual."

"That's me," he muttered. "Irritating. Useless."

She frowned. "I didn't say you were useless."

"But that's what you meant, isn't it?" He cleared his throat and spoke in perfect falsetto. " _Pathetic Apollo, he couldn't do anything on his own. Look at how he scrambles and weeps, it's hilarious!"_ He hunched forward. "I bet my suffering raked in some good ratings on Hephaestus TV." 

What? "No," she said. "Why would you say such a thing? You know that is not true."

"How would you know? You don't watch TV. You're a barbarian."

"Living in the wilds without TV does not make me a _barbarian_." Artemis pinched the bridge of her nose. She was getting off point. "No one thinks you are pathetic. Is that why you have been avoiding Olympus?"

Apollo ignored her, turning his attention back to his leaf.

"What is wrong with you? _"_ she demanded, exasperated. "When will you stop disrespecting me?"

"Why do you keep trying to invade my privacy?" he shot back.

"I'm your sister! I am _worried_ for you!"

"First you want to know how I'm doing, and now you're _worried_ for me?"

She nearly grabbed for her knives. " _Poseidon's Shorts_ , would you just tell me what your problem is?"

"By Olympus—" The ambient golden glow around Apollo grew brighter. "Fine! You really want an answer?"

" _Yes!"_

" _You!"_ he yelled, crumpling up the leaf in his fist. “My problem is _you_. I cannot stand you, or Athena, or _any_ of the gods, and I _especially_ cannot stand the sight of our oh-so-mighty father lounging around on his glorious golden throne!” Thunder rumbled overhead, at which he screamed, “SHUT UP! I swear, if you don’t shut up for once in my godforsaken existence, I will _burn out my essence_ in trying to see whether it’ll be enough to destroy one of your damned lightning bolts, so help me!”

The heavens grumbled, and for one long moment, the world held its breath as it teetered dangerously on the knife-edge between serenity and violence. The golden glow emanating from Apollo turned near blinding. For a split second, Artemis truly believed her brother would throw himself at Zeus and not stop until he was in a thousand little pieces.

Then the sky stilled, and the clouds settled. Artemis watched in silent astonishment as Apollo slowly turned his gaze back to the leaf in his hands, only to find that he’d incinerated it in his anger. He scowled, opened his fist, and let a fine stream of grey ash get caught away in the breeze.  
  
He’d threatened Zeus with self-immolation. The bluff had worked. But to have made such a bluff at all . . . .

To a god, immortality was at once an unshakeable certainty and a most precarious state of being. Fame, power—they were important, yes, but nothing was as fundamentally crucial to a god as _existence_. To speak so lightly of one's own destruction was highly unusual. To genuinely wish for oblivion? Unimaginable.

"Can I inquire what I did to deserve such ire?" said Artemis, distracted by this newfound knowledge of her brother's suicidal behavior to be properly offended at his obvious hostility toward her.

He hesitated, then sighed. "Look, I'm . . . not at my best. I shouldn't have yelled."

"I am glad you have your priorities straight. It would be nice if those priorities included answering my questions."

"I don't like our indifference toward demigods, okay?" he burst out. His expression crumpled into . . . grief. "Olympus doesn't care about heroes. Mortals die for us every day, and we just . . . don't care."

A part of her essence ached in protest. "That is not true."

"It isn't?" His fury seemed to return full-force. "How else would you explain the heroes who die? What is that, if not indifference on our part?" The temperature around him ratcheted up a good ten degrees. "I _saw_ them, Artemis. _Children_ were torn apart in front of my eyes. These, these helpless, finite beings throw themselves away, and for what? None of us realize what we receive! We do not recognize their sacrifice, we are barely aware there were sacrifices made for us in the first place!"

"You think I have not seen heroes die before me?" she retorted. "You think I do not know this?"

Apollo's eyes burned like miniature suns. "If you have witnessed them perish, why will you not admit to our failings?"

"All right, maybe it is indifference," she acquiesced. "Maybe it is too much indifference, maybe it is the poisonous sort of disinterest. But you cannot say we do not care."

"Why not?" he spat, acidic, derisive.

They had fought many times in the past, but never like this. Apollo had never spoken to her with real malice in his speech, and Artemis found that disorienting. 

"Because once we did care," she pushed back, determined to say her piece. "We cared for all of them, we were obsessed. Do you not remember _why_ we ceased caring? Do you not remember the tears we shed?" Her voice began to climb. "Century upon century upon century of loss, and we _changed_. We are everlasting, and they are not. Did you honestly expect us to endure it without going mad? Do you truly think I did not weep for my loved ones, and for the thousands of souls I never gave myself the chance to know?" 

Apollo made no move to interrupt her.

She clenched her hands into fists. "Perhaps you are right to accuse us of apathy. It is certainly not a quality to be proud of. But I will not have you call us uncaring." _That is a personal affront_ , she thought. "Our responsibility is to the entire world. We can only choose so many to care for. Demigods may call us heartless, but you should know not to."

Apollo opened his mouth, then closed it. All at once, the anger that had been holding him up seemed to drain out of him, leaving him even smaller than before. "You're right," he said quietly. "I'm not the one who should be accusing others of their faults, anyway."

Artemis had known Apollo for four thousand years, and never had she thought to describe him as anything other than flashy and shallow. But now, stripped of his distracting flourishes and loud pride, what remained was a being she had no idea how to deal with—self-deprecating as a default, resentful from his grief.  _I don't know you anymore_ , she realized.

Had Athena known? Had she known that Artemis would need to reacquaint herself with this new Apollo? 

Artemis couldn't be sure. Her vocation was not Wisdom. She had a different duty. Hers were the wild hills, the lost girls. She was the patron of the night, leading wanderers home by the steady light of the moon. 

She stood. Balancing expertly on the precarious arms of the redwood, she stepped over to the branch Apollo was sitting in and settled down beside him without barely a rustle of leaves.

He threw her a puzzled glance. "What are you doing?"

"Sitting with you."

"Why?"

"Because I feel like it." _Because you look like you're ready to fall asleep and not wake up_. "Is it a problem?"

". . . No."

"Good."

They were still for a while. Then, hesitantly, he asked, "Do you really think we are mad?"

"In a way." She swung her legs a bit, feeling young and old and reminiscent. "We used to try harder. Do you remember? Back when the world was new."

"I remember." He tipped his head back. ”We wanted to protect the ones we favored. Threw everything we had into it and didn't look back. We . . . some of the things we did, it . . . .“ He sighed.

“There were a lot of things we did," she agreed.

"Somehow we never could quite help them.” There was a tremor in his voice, heavy with melancholy that she could almost taste. “Sometimes I wonder if we—no, if _I_ —did . . . more bad than good. No matter what I did or what I didn't, I just . . . made them more miserable."  
  
Artemis hummed. ”But not all of it was bad, was it?”  
  
His laugh was hollow. “I highly doubt that. I have an incredibly long list of failures."

"You saved that McCaffrey child from Nero's influence, didn't you?"

He immediately waved the notion away. "She saved herself."

"You released Helios from his rage."

"No, I _encouraged_ him to do what he wanted to do."

Artemis thought, searched her mind for something he would claim, and remembered. "You saved me from a cursed fate."

". . . I did?"

"Four years ago. You helped a group of demigods free me from"—she had to consciously suppress the shudder that climbed up her arms at the thought of the Titan—"Atlas.”

He blinked. “Oh.”

She narrowed her eyes. "Do you mean to tell me you forgot about that so soon?" 

His hands shot up into the air in surrender. “No, no, I definitely remember it.”

"Are you certain? You don't seem very certain. Perhaps I could jog your memory."

“No need to hit me on the head, I remember. How could I not? For a week there I thought I’d go crazy, I couldn’t _find_ you—“ He cleared his throat. "Anyway, it wasn't that big of a deal. I gave some dirty half-bloods a ride on a train. So what? I think Annabeth Chase's human father played a more valuable role in that quest than I did."

“If you hadn’t given those half-bloods that train ride,” she told him, “I might still be laboring under the weight of the sky. Our grandfather may have won, and plunged the world into chaos. The world might have been lost for good.”

"Has anyone ever told you that you have a tendency for exaggerations?”

"Will you stop being difficult and accept it already? I'm trying to boost your ego."

". . . Okay."

She absently rubbed at her wrists.

"You don't like to talk about it," he noted.

"It was . . . unpleasant," she allowed herself.

He studied her. "Surely it was more than just unpleasant."

"It was barely a few days of captivity. Holding the sky did not tax me by much. It was nothing."

The loss of control over her situation had been horrifying. She had seethed with rage, yet had been powerless to help brave Annabeth Chase on the brink of death, or loyal Zöe Nightshade fighting her father with poison running through her veins. Only when a son of Poseidon had offered to take the weight of the heavens off her had she been given the option to fight back.

But that was in the past. It would not do to let fear affect her.

Apollo was quiet for a long time. When he broke the silence, it was with hesitance. "I don't think it was nothing, if it bothered you. I think . . . it doesn't matter if we live forever, or if we're a bit mad. We're allowed to be bothered by things."

She frowned. What Apollo was describing sounded . . . _human_. "We are gods. We mustn't let trivial feelings distract us."

He shrugged. "We hold grudges just fine, don't we? If we can feel hatred, why can't we feel fear too?"

She struggled to form an answer. "We are meant to be stronger," she said at last.  
  
"I don't know about that."

“You can make brains burst when you hit the right note."

"That's different."

"Explain, then."  
  
He was slow to speak, as if he were coming to terms with his own opinions for the first time while he was voicing them. “We . . . still _feel,_ the same way mortals do. All the bad emotions, and the good—we still feel them.” He met her eyes. "Perhaps we're more similar to them than we let ourselves think. Perhaps we aren't mad, we're more like . . . undying mortals. And we should allow ourselves a margin of . . . feeling _._ So to speak."

"That makes no sense."

"What I meant to say is, we're allowed to feel things. Even if they're negative emotions." He sounded more confident than he had a moment ago. "We shouldn't have to pretend those feelings aren't there. We're allowed that much, at least."

"And if we accept our— _sentiments_ —for what they are? What then?"

"We find a way to deal with it. I guess."

She thought about it. Slowly, she nodded. "Thank you."

"What for?" he asked, startled.

"Saving me from Atlas. Sharing wisdom."

"Oh." He shifted uncertainly. ". . . You're welcome."

She couldn't resist adding, "What little wisdom you have, anyway."

"Hey! I'm _full_  of wisdom!"

"Mmm."

"I am overflowing with it. You won't believe how much awesome advice I gave away to the demigods."

"Mmm."

"You're not listening to me, are you."

"Do you truly believe we are mortal in nature?" she said, ignoring him.

"It would explain why we aren't perfect," he said, his indignation immediately forgotten at the change in topic.

"Aren't we supposed to be close to it?" she asked. "Perfection?"

"If we're what's considered perfection, I'd hate to see what's not."

She couldn't argue with that one.

Then she remembered something else.

"Earlier, you did not seem to think so highly of Fa—Zeus."

His face went perfectly blank. 

"Tell me," Artemis blurted. "What he did, what he does still. Tell me what you went through." _Tell me how you became how you are._

He averted his gaze. "I don't—it's not—"

She studied him. "Will you trust me if I say I am worried for you?"

". . . I would like to." He shook his head, and looked up. "Actually, I have a question as well."

"If you answer mine, I'll answer yours."

"Um." Apollo balked. "I think . . . you should go first? Because my answer is going to be . . . long. Can you go first?"

Artemis considered it. "Only if you promise to answer truthfully afterwards."

She thought she saw him flinch back at the word "promise," but she could be wrong. "I—I promise."

"All right." Artemis made a _go-ahead_ gesture.

Apollo seemed to brace himself. "You asked, earlier, when I would . . . stop disrespecting you."

Oh. "I lost my temper. I didn't mean much by it."

"No," he insisted. "Don't say that. Tell me how I wronged you."

Artemis weighed her options. 

"Answer truthfully," said Apollo. "After all, that is what you wanted from me."

 _Touché_.

She had already told him of her . . . _dislike_ for Atlas. She sighed, and resigned herself to more honesty. 

"You call me Little Sister. You try to make my decisions for me. You seem to think that I am somehow lesser than you, when I am just as old and just as powerful. I am an Olympian of my own right. I would have you remember that. I would have you respect me."

For a moment, the truth was freeing, and Artemis felt lighter for it. Then her brother's expression crumpled so fast that she felt a pang of sympathy resonate from the center of her essence. Belatedly, she wondered if she should have phrased her words in the past tense, as he hadn't committed any such transgressions today.

"I'm sorry," was the first thing out of his mouth, and she couldn't help but feel shock sweep through her. A genuine apology, from Apollo?

What followed was worse. "I won't do that anymore," he said. "Any of that. I didn't mean to offend you, and that's no excuse, but I'm sorry. I won't ever call you Little Sister again." 

 _You misunderstand_ , she thought, feeling like her nonexistent heart had just stopped.

"Well," she replied carefully, "calling me 'Little' is the part I don't like. 'Sister' is fine."

He appeared bewildered by that. But after a long moment, a dazzling smile broke out on his face like a sunrise, and Artemis thought, with not a small amount of relief, _There you are_.

"Request acknowledged," he said, beaming at her. 

Fighting the urge to smile back, Artemis cleared her throat. "So. I answered truthfully. I believe it is your turn."

In the blink of an eye, his cheer disappeared. "Right," he said, miserable again.

Artemis waited.

"This is . . . are you sure you want to hear me blather about this? It's not a very entertaining tale."

"I am sure."

He sighed. "If you say so."

At first he was reluctant to speak, halting himself every few sentences. But once he’d forced out a story or two, it all rushed out of him like a tidal wave: the steadily growing tower of blame, the terrifying rage of their father, and four thousand years worth of lightning bolt strikes. He spoke of hiding, of trying to distract himself with his variety of talents, skipping from hobby to hobby. He spoke of getting angry at the lightning, angry enough to kill the lightning's makers, and the horrible punishment that followed. He spoke of constantly feeling judged, feeling alone, and trying to drown his unease in the hollow praises of others. He started to cry when he began recounting his most recent fall from Olympus, and by the time he was telling her of the deaths he'd seen, he was sobbing hard enough to be incomprehensible. 

During his tale, Artemis continually cycled through disbelief, horror, pity, and guilt. She didn't like Zeus, never had—but he was gruffly affectionate with her, and sometimes she didn't hate him as much. She had assumed the same would be true for her twin. She had been very, very wrong.

 _I never knew you_ , she realized, as her brother broke apart next to her and all she could do was offer him her undivided attention. _If this is what you've suffered, if this is who you've been all this time, I didn't know you at all_.

"You can stop," she said, in the wake of five full minutes of uncontrollable weeping. "You do not have to tell me everything today."

Apollo gulped, sniffled, and scrubbed at his face. "Am I an ugly crier?" he managed hoarsely.

"The ugliest."

"You're lying. I'm gorgeous."

"Keep telling yourself that."

He made an effort to turn up his nose at her, wiping his tears away. "Thank you, I think I will."

When he'd calmed down enough so that he was no longer shuddering with sobs every few seconds, Artemis said, "I'm sorry."

He shook his head. "Don't be. You didn't know."

"I should have." _Zöe. Bianca. Now you, too. My own list of failures._

He cracked a tiny grin. "Last I checked, you weren't the goddess of oracles."

She shoved at his shoulder. "Braggart."

"Hey, I can't help being fabulous!" But as soon as the words were out of his mouth, his face dropped, as if he were instantly regretting what he'd said.

She nudged him, coaxing his attention back to her. "I still expect you to tell me the things you left out today," she told him, thinking about honesty and how it felt to have someone just . . . listen. "It can be in small pieces. Talk when you're ready to. But you _will_ tell me everything."

"Are you not familiar with the concept of privacy?" he grumbled, halfhearted.

"You're the one who couldn't tell me all of your adventures as a mortal because you were busy weeping. I'm curious."

He huffed. "Fine. I suppose I did promise to tell you what I went through."

The silence that fell next was, for the first time that evening, surprisingly comfortable.

"Do you still dislike us?" she asked, after a while. "For distancing ourselves from mortals?"

He sighed. "No. Sorry about that. I . . . shouldn't have been so condemning."

There it was again. An apology, fully meant and easily given. "You've changed."

He wrinkled his nose. "I talk like the demigods, don't I? I've assimilated their vocabulary."

 _Not just the vocabulary_. "Change is not a bad thing."

"No," he agreed, thoughtful. "I guess not." 

"Speaking of changes. You've dropped the haikus.”  
  
“Oh, I had a good fill of them during my recent human phase. I composed one for every step of the journey. My very own Iliad, if you will, except it was a collection of haikus.” His eyes lit up in excitement. “Do you want to hear one? Some of them are fairly excellent, if I do say so myself. Hardship does wonders for creativity!“  
  
Artemis resisted laughing at his eagerness. “Maybe later.”

Apollo seemed to perceive that as an affirmative and began counting on his fingers, muttering haikus under his breath.

She directed her gaze upwards. The moon was rising. It would be a fine sight tonight, a silver circle on clear, black skies. The constellation of the Huntress would be bright across the heavens.

While she'd been listening to Apollo, guilt had been the most prominent emotion. Now anger burned inside her. 

She had failed him, yes, but this particular failing of hers was not like the others. Apollo hadn't gone where she could not reach. This failing wasn't irreversible. She could do something about this. She could right these wrongs.

She had been blind to her brother's suffering for too long. She would not let Zeus touch him again. 

"Come with me," she said suddenly, getting up and offering Apollo a hand.

He stopped counting and gave her a quizzical look. "Why?"

"There's someone who would want to see you."

He hesitated. "It—it's not Zeus, is it?"

"No," she promised. "Trust me. You will be glad to see her, and her you."

Her brother eyed her proffered hand warily. "I really hope you're not talking about Athena," he muttered, and grudgingly took it.

 

* * *

 

"Mother," Artemis called.

The beautiful woman at the terrace turned around. "Artemis," she beamed, her eyes crinkling in heartfelt joy. "It is so good to see you, my dear. Sit, you must be tired from sleeping on forest floors—" She stopped. Her eyes widened.

Artemis pulled Apollo—who'd been hiding in the doorway—into the room. 

"Um," he said.

"Apollo," Leto breathed.

Apollo swallowed. “Mother." His voice cracked.

Artemis stepped aside.  
  
In a sweep of her skirts, Leto rushed forward and engulfed Apollo in a crushing hug. “My child,” she whispered, squeezing him close, frantically pressing kisses into his hair. “My child, my lovely child. I missed you so.”  
  
As Apollo trembled in their mother's embrace, then broke down into tears, Artemis thought, _At least I did this one thing right._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written post-Burning Maze. It should be said that not all gods are as compassionate as Artemis. She is an advocate for a small selection of immortals.
> 
> I can't believe this one took me so long. This moon goddess is harder to write than Apollo. (By the way, I've realized that calling this an Apollo fic might have been false advertising. This is a multi-pov Greek gods character study fic, apparently. My bad.)  
> As always, thank you, nice people who left awesome comments. You have provided me with the determination to see this fic through. Next chapter, Hermes POV.


	4. Across Time and Space

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Responsibility. Hermes POV, third person.

When Zeus called for his presence, Hermes honestly considered impersonating a voicemail greeting and saying, _Nope, erp, Hermes_ _too busy! Leave a message!_

The "busy" part was largely true. Every passing second was an exhausting rush of information: thousands of mortals texting, tweeting, posting pictures, blabbing about the news, blabbing about celebrity scandals, and yelling a lot about the idiocy of acquaintances and world leaders. Not to mention the millions of packages waiting to be processed, business calls to be connected, flights to be made, traffic jams to be navigated, etc. It was an oppressive amount of workload, and sometimes it was very easy to feel like he was a tiny hamster trapped in a very sturdy hamster wheel instead of the divine being of great importance he was.

It had been a touch easier when there had been no contact allowed between Olympus and its heroes. Sure, Olympus shutting itself off from the outside world was a brief thing, closely followed by an _immense_ headache of his Greek and Roman selves splitting apart. But now that he was back at his normal grueling pace instead of the slightly less painful one . . . . He knew times of crisis were not pleasant at all, but he couldn't help thinking of that tiny period of respite as a short-lived vacation, headache and all. Having to throw himself back into the usual killer schedule was suffocating. 

The point was, the stress of being important was not to be taken lightly.

But one did not simply ignore a summons from the king of the gods. So Hermes worked an extra hour at twice his usual speed, chugged a grande-size triple espresso spiked with Nectar, and went to have an audience with his father.

"I have a message for Apollo," was Zeus's greeting, given from a wicker chair on the palace balcony.

"Hello to you too," Hermes muttered.

"Tell him I will forgive his departing so rudely from our last conversation," Zeus continued as if Hermes hadn't said anything, "so he may cease avoiding Olympus for fear of my wrath. It is not right for an Olympian to be absent from his Seat for long." He tapped his fingers on his knee. "Tell him to return soon, and that he is to come see me first thing when he returns." 

Well. That should be fun for Apollo. "Can I ask why?"

Zeus ignored him.

Right. God of messages, not of conversation. Be seen and not heard, yadda yadda.

"Okay then. Will there be anything else?" _Please don't order me to put on music, I'm not Alexa_ , Hermes thought.

"No. Deliver the message."

 _Rude_ , George sniffed.

 _George_ , Martha chided. _He's the king._ She paused. _A rude king._

Zeus didn't spare him one sidelong glance as Hermes walked out of the reception room. Flying away from Olympus, Hermes regretted not sticking a tongue out at the back of his father's head.

 

* * *

 

At first, he thought getting a message to Apollo would be an easy task. Everyone had godly smartphones these days—except for the traditionalists like Demeter or Zeus—and it was simple enough to send a quick text. There was no longer a need for a messenger to travel three thousand miles on foot. Revolutionary, really. If it hadn't been for the incredible uptick on his workload, Hermes would have been overjoyed for the existence of cell phones. Nothing like throwing coins into a rainbow and hoping Iris wasn't asleep.

But when his Caduceus-phone failed to send a text to Apollo five times in a row, Hermes realized he might have to deliver this message the old-fashioned way. Which meant figuring out where Apollo was.

Still, it wasn't a big problem. One of the perks of being a god was the ability to materialize wherever he chose to at the drop of a hat, no walking necessary. All he needed was a location. This was where Track My Phone features came in handy. There was a significant advantage to be had when one possessed supreme control over all mobile devices and needed to find someone else.

But Apollo must have done something terrible to his phone, because when Hermes searched for its location the only feedback he got was a weird sense of aggressive solar flares and binary despair.

 _Oh no_ , Martha whispered. _That poor phone_.

 _Barbaric_ , George agreed.  _I need a rat_.

Hermes became aware that this was going to be one annoyingly difficult message to deliver.

Gods were a tricky sort to track down when they didn't want to be disturbed. As a rule, no immortal could sense where other immortals were without their explicit consent. It was what made Pan's disappearance and ultimate death possible, as no god had been able to find nor help him. (Mm, bad track of thought. Hermes wrenched himself away from thinking about death as quickly as he was able and turned his attention to Amazon Prime's shipping manifests.)

He tried asking around a bit, hoping for some hint to Apollo's whereabouts, but it was futile. It seemed that as far as every deity on Olympus was concerned, Apollo had disappeared off the face of the earth. Hermes hadn't even noticed.

He'd known Apollo would be messed up after his experiences as a human. Proximity with mortals was a turbulent affair at the best of times, and gods didn't tend to come out of such experiences unscathed. As far as godly half-brothers went, Apollo was pretty tolerable. Hermes should have checked in with him properly, instead of making one distracted attempt to text the sun god nearly nine months prior and completely forgetting about his existence. Now he was paying for it by trying to find the Apollo needle in the Earth haystack. (Of course, this was just a metaphor. If he were literally searching for a needle in a haystack, he'd be done in a snap of his fingers.)

One fascinating tidbit of information he picked up during his fruitless search for Apollo gossip, though, was that the sun god's silver twin was also incognito at the moment.

It wasn't uncommon for Artemis to disappear into some forest or other from time to time. But she was Apollo's sister. Maybe there was a chance that she knew where the sun god was. _Maybe_ , Hermes's occasionally accurate, badly neglected prankster instincts whispered, _she's with him right now_.

Individually, Artemis was infinitely harder to track than Apollo. But one thing Artemis had that Apollo didn't was a squad of semi-immortal warrior maidens, who happened to be much easier to locate than a proverbial needle in a haystack.

 _The Hunters?_ George asked in disbelief. _You're going to voluntarily go talk to the Hunters?_

 _You do know who Artemis's current Lieutenant is, right?_  Martha said.

"I know," he muttered. As if he could forget.

Part of him was screaming, _Don't do it, man! Don't do it!_ The other part was frantically listing the numerous reasons he _had_ to do it, such as:  _I'm the messenger god, I can do anything, I have a responsibility, Father will destroy me if I don't—_

He gripped his Caduceus tight and transported himself to a particular part of the Himalayan mountains, where the Hunters of Artemis had set up camp. Two girls who'd been standing watch gave him a complicated look that obviously meant,  _Why._ Then they bowed respectfully. "You honor us with your presence, Lord," one Hunter said in a monotone. "The Lady Artemis is presently absent. I will fetch the Lieutenant."

"Yes, thank you. You do that."

Sixty seconds later, a girl with short black hair and a silver circlet emerged from one of the tents. She walked like a prowling puma. 

Thalia Grace came to a precise, controlled stop four feet away from Hermes and studied him.

Unbidden, an image of a gray-eyed Annabeth Chase bloomed in his mind. _Your fault_ , her silence had accused. _It’s your fault_.

"Thalia Grace," he said.

"Lord Hermes." His half-sister looked like she wanted to shoot an arrow into his mouth. "To what do I owe the honor?" 

"I have reason to seek out your Lady. Do you know her whereabouts?"

"Saint Edwards State Park," she answered immediately. "Near Seattle."

"Mm." He cleared his throat. "Aren't you going to ask me why I'm looking for her?"

Her expression was sub-zero levels of freezing.  _You are by no means a threat to my lady, so why bother_ , went unsaid. What she said was, "I'm sure you have your reasons, Lord." 

Hermes abruptly recalled having his reasons for keeping his distance from Luke, and telling Percy Jackson as much. He wondered if Percy had ever told Thalia that Luke's father had had his reasons.

He remembered that Jason Grace had died last year. Which meant Thalia Grace, who'd once given her life to save her friends, had already outlived her best friend and her little brother. 

He felt sick. "Thank you. I'll go now."

The daughter of Zeus inclined her head ever so slightly, the closest she would get to bowing. Hermes hurriedly dissolved himself into trillions of divine molecules, eager to flee from Luke's old friend and her electric blue eyes.

 

* * *

 

Artemis was not in Saint Edwards State Park. After a painstaking aerial search of the surrounding areas, Hermes found Artemis and Apollo drinking milkshakes in downtown Seattle's Johnny Rockets, looking for all the world like teenagers.   
  
He popped into existence next to their booth. “Why are you so hard to find?” he said as a way of greeting.  
  
The twins reacted to his surprise entrance in different manners. The golden-haired boy froze in the middle of handing over a squiggly straw to his sister. The silver-eyed girl whipped out a wicked knife.  
  
_Evasive maneuvers!_ Martha yelled.  
  
“Hey!” he protested, dancing away from the slashing blade. “Messenger god here! I come in peace!”

“Hmph,” Artemis sniffed. The knife evaporated from her hand. She accepted the squiggly straw from her brother.

"You are too fond of that knife," said Apollo. He stole the cherry crowning Artemis’s drink and popped it in his mouth before she could swipe it back. Artemis glared at him as she stirred her milkshake, methodically mixing in the mound of whipped cream piled on top with her straw.

Apollo eyed Hermes. "So, what's up? No way you'd come looking for us if it wasn't for business."

Hermes huffed indignantly. "To answer all your burning questions, yes I'm very busy all the time, yes that doesn't leave me much room for a social life, and yes I have a message for you. Not Artemis though, there's no message for Artemis."

Artemis ignored him, choosing to focus on her milkshake.

"But really, why are you so hard to find?" Hermes demanded. "No, scratch that, what did you do to your _phone_?"

Apollo winced. "Um—"

"Is asking him about his phone the message?" Artemis interjected.

". . . Not exactly."

"Then get on with it."

Hermes tried not to be hurt.

He’d initially taken the job of messenger mainly because he wanted to meet people. Sure, he was promised prestige and honor, but he was a god. Prestige and honor were a given.

He’d wanted to make friends all around the world. Travel over mountain and sea, witness the forests and frozen plains. Meet the people living in stone monoliths, in grassy huts, in squashed-together houses shoulder to shoulder with exasperated neighbors. Play some pranks, find someone to share jokes with. Leave one conversation to plunge immediately into the next.  
  
He hadn’t known that being a messenger would mean people waited for the messages he had to deliver, not the greetings he gave.

Hermes turned to Apollo to complain. "She's mean."

"I suppose talking in front of someone as if she can't hear you is perfectly acceptable?" said Artemis.

"You tried to stab me," said Hermes. "I feel threatened by your presence."

"A woman's ability to protect herself does have a tendency of making men uncomfortable." She slid out of her seat. "I have no wish to overhear a private message of yours," she said to Apollo. "I will be outside. If he tries anything, stab first." 

"Yes, yes," Apollo grumbled. "I can handle myself."

"How about _no_ stabbing," Hermes suggested.

Artemis rolled her eyes and left with her milkshake. Her easy, predatory prowl reminded Hermes of her Lieutenant.

Apollo was looking at him strangely. "Are you all right?"

"Yes. No." He took Artemis's vacated seat. "I'm vacillating."

"Ah." Apollo fiddled with his squiggly straw. "That happens sometimes."

"Yes, it does." He ran a hand down his face, suddenly very tired. 

"Sorry I blew up my phone and made you come in person for a message," said Apollo.

Hermes dropped his hand from his face. "You blew it up? _How?_ Those things can withstand our original forms, you can't just _blow it up_."

"Sun chariot," Apollo muttered. 

Hermes facepalmed. 

 _Hermes, dear_ , Martha whispered helpfully. _Focus. Message_.

 _Yeah_ , George chimed in. _Let's get this over with and go rat hunting_.

Hermes sighed. "Right. Message." 

"Who's it from?" Apollo asked.

"Father."

Apollo went unnaturally still.

Hermes relayed Zeus's message, word for word.

Apollo licked his lips. "Did he say when I had to return?" He sounded odd. Detached.

"No. If I were you, I'd definitely take my time about it." Hermes tapped his fingers on the table. "What's going on between you and Father, anyway?"

"Oh, the usual, I suppose," said Apollo. "He doesn't like how I'm behaving, and I don't want to see his face."

"Mm." So Zeus was being an even bigger dick than usual.

Hermes was equipped with neither the tack nor the experience necessary to talk about The Zeus Problem with Apollo. Hephaestus probably qualified, but Hephaestus didn't talk that much. 

"I didn't know you and Artemis were close enough to get milkshakes together," he said, changing the subject.

"She's decided we have a lot of catching up to do. She says I'm annoying, but she hasn't left yet." Apollo smiled a bit, looking pleased, and Hermes abruptly realized this was the first time he'd seen Apollo the Chronic Grinner smile today. Which was freaky.

"Well," said Hermes, moving to stand. "I should be going." 

"Wait," said Apollo, quickly shedding his smile. "I have something I need to say to you."

"A message for me?" He sat back down. "I'm touched."

Apollo swallowed. "It's not a very nice message."

Hermes shrugged. "Messages are like that. Not every message is pleasant. But they can be appreciated." He propped his chin on his hand. "Go on."

Apollo took a breath. “I’ve been remembering,” he said. “I had a lot of time to think, recently. So I’ve been going through my memories, newest to oldest, and I’ve been counting the people I wronged.” He looked down. “I owe you an apology, don’t I? For May Castellan.”

Hermes leaned back in his seat.  
  
That name. Oh, but that name never failed to make him feel like he’d been sucker-punched by Typhon.

Hermes had loved May Castellan with an intensity that surprised himself. He had loved how her eyes folded into crescents when she smiled, loved how her confidence shined when she demanded respect from the world around her. He had loved her willingness to put weeks into planning a good practical joke and loved her eagerness to explore new things. 

They'd once laid ruin to her cramped college flat because neither of them was willing to back down from a prank war. The memory of her laughter, when she'd nailed him in the face with the third cream pie of the week after distracting him with some complicated contraption rigged up in one of the closets, was still crystal clear in his mind.

 _I admit my defeat_ , he'd said, collapsing bonelessly onto the half-sunken couch and flicking cream out of his eyes. _I can't win against you, love_.

 _You are a gracious loser, love_ , she'd chortled, throwing him a roll of paper towels. 

They'd been so happy when they'd held a screaming baby Luke in their arms for the first time.

He could recall with perfect clarity the exact expression she'd worn moments before she disappeared into the Big House on Half-Blood Hill, on the day their cursed fate was fixed in stone. She'd been excited, so much so that she was vibrating. _Don't go_ , he'd nearly called to her back. _What we have is perfect. This is perfect. Don't go_.

But May Castellan was a prankster and an explorer at heart. She'd passed up an opportunity to go study the temples of Angkor in Cambodia for a chance to become the Delphi Oracle. In no possible universe would he have been able to win against her determination. So he'd carefully cradled a small, squirming Luke in his arms and waited for her to come back to them, shining with confidence in the wake of another conquered mystery.

She never did.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Hermes croaked. His throat had gone dry. “You didn’t know there was a curse on your oracle.” He'd almost decapitated Hades when he found out.  
  
“I could have. I should have.” Apollo kept his eyes determinedly downcast. “I should have realized it was impossible for Delphi to be succeeded. I should have recognized the signs, warned people. I could have saved so many mortals from insanity. But I wasn’t paying attention to my oracle, or any potential mortals who might wish to pledge themselves to me.” He was practically strangling his fingers. “That's entirely my fault.”  
  
Hermes couldn’t find his words. _You could have saved her?_ a small part of him wanted to scream. _That’s not how the Fates work_ , his sense of reason whispered, dejected. _There are some things you cannot change._

“Improbable possibilities,” he finally said. “I wouldn’t dwell on it.”  
  
Apollo shrugged. “I don’t know. My problem is that there’s a whole lot more where that came from, those lost possibilities. I've done a lot wrong. Not helping the heroes that needed help, for one. Letting them die for me. Not stopping my children who strayed too far, _falling_ for the twisted whispers of my descendant—”  
  
“If I might interrupt you here,” Hermes cut in. “I want to correct you on one thing.”

Apollo blinked.  
  
After May, and after . . . after Luke, Hermes had done a lot of thinking. He'd regretted, shed tears, thought about what-ifs, and generally stewed in self-disgust while trying to find someone to blame. If the years of sadness had given him anything, it was . . . a sort of wisdom.

“Take credit for what you feel you did wrong, if you wish,” he said, slowly, deliberately, finding the words for a thought he hadn't had occasion to voice before. “If you have mistakes you'd like to regret, claim them. But the crimes of our children, and the voluntary choices of others—those are not our own. Don't claim that. We should take responsibility for what is ours, nothing more.”  
  
“If I didn’t stop them,” said Apollo, “doesn’t the crime belong to me as well? Doesn't that mean I let them die?”  
  
They were familiar questions. He'd recently found what felt like an answer. “Do not disrespect them by undermining the importance of their own decisions. Their lives are theirs to live. We are not as important as we like to think we are.”

It had been May’s choice that drove her to madness. It had been Luke’s choice that drove him to his death.  
  
It’d taken him a long time, but Hermes had come to terms with it. He couldn't have saved them. Their fates had never been his responsibility. It had always been theirs.  
  
He would mourn. He would remember. But he would not dishonor them by regretting the choices they’d made for themselves. Regret was a choice that belonged to them. Whether to love them, their choices and all? That was his.

Apollo slowly exhaled. "I'll—I'll think on that."

"Do." Hermes stood. "Now if you'll excuse me, there must be a hundred customer complaints backed up by now—"

"Can I ask you a favor?" said Apollo suddenly.

"Depends on the favor."

"If you ever get a chance to drop by Camp Half-Blood, can you . . . can you see how my kids are doing? I know I'm not supposed to have contact with them, and I'm not asking you to relay a message, just . . . ." Apollo clutched at his milkshake. "I need to know if they're okay. In general. Are they still breathing, have they caught hay fever—no, never mind, I just need to know if they're okay. Just, just that."

"Well." Hermes grimaced. "I don't know if I can."

Apollo's face fell. "I understand."

"It's not that I don't want to," Hermes rushed to explain. "I don't stop by Camp Half-Blood anymore. I dropped the place from my jurisdiction."

Apollo frowned. "I thought you liked visiting your kids."

"Used to." Before May. Before Luke. Before the blasted valley turned into a minefield of grief for him. 

"Don't you miss them?" asked Apollo, clearly puzzled.

“. . . I don’t know.”  
  
_I’m afraid_ , he thought. He’d been barely allowed to see Luke, yet had loved him so. If he grew close to his remaining children, and the Fates demanded one of them again . . . .

He wasn’t sure if he would recover from that.

Apollo stirred his milkshake. "I don't know the depth of your pain," he said. "I can't tell you what is right or wrong, and I'm certain you have your reasons. But I know I would take any chance I could get, if it meant I could witness one more moment of my children's existences with them.” He met Hermes's eyes. "Can I suggest you give your hesitance some more thought? In my experience, the people you still have tend to be more precious than your grief."

Hermes stared for a long moment, taken aback. ". . . You've changed." _More so than I expected_ , he thought.

"Funny, Artemis said the same." The sun god took a sip of his drink. Casually offhand, he said, "There's this music festival coming up. San Francisco. It's a good lineup. You'd be welcome to come hang with me and Artemis."

Hermes mulled it over. "I'll see what I can do about my schedule."

"Great." Apollo grinned. "You can go deal with your email backlog now."

"I think I will." Hermes gave a sarcastic salute. When he dissolved into a cloud of divine particles, his mind was whirring.

Maybe Apollo was right. Maybe it was time he started prioritizing the people he could still reach instead of letting himself wallow in misery. Work could be pushed back. He could probably burn through that pile of customer complaints in five hours. Nothing was impossible with enough stubbornness and coffee.

He would visit camp. Claim anyone he hadn't claimed yet, make sure Conner was feeling fine with being head counselor on his lonesome. See if Cecil broke something extraordinary this week. Give Alice and Julia some pointers on the fine art of pranking. He couldn’t forget his college kids, of course. Travis was a freshman. That was a big milestone.  
  
But first . . . .  
  
“Hello, love," he said, announcing his presence to a messy suburban kitchen. A tiny beanbag Medusa sat by the faucet.  
  
May Castellan looked up, fractured eyes unsteady, and smiled. “Oh. It’s good to see you, love.”

 

* * *

 

(Artemis took one look at Apollo's face and asked, "What did he do?"

"Nothing! We just talked for a bit."

"You look pathetic."

"No, I don't." Apollo twisted his fingers. "It was a message from Zeus. He wants me to come see him."

". . . You don't have to go."

"Of course I have to go."

"Refuse. Say no."

Apollo laughed, brittle, hollow. "I don't get to say no."

Artemis studied him. "Did he give you a deadline?"

"Not really."

"Then stall."

"Hermes suggested that too."

"Good. If you go now, you're going to either blubber or blow up in Zeus's face."

"Where is your faith in me?" Apollo whined. Then he sighed. "Fine, you're right. I'm not ready to see him again."

"Not yet."

"Not yet, no.")

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Artemis has taken to updating her Hunters on her welfare while she's away with Apollo. She's getting a lot of post-victory-against-Greek-monster group photos back. Also, in this house we love Thalia Grace and May Castellan. (To those of you confused about why Hermes feels the need to point out his name isn't Alexa: see "Alexa play Despacito" meme.)
> 
> Hermes was slightly easier to write than Artemis, in that I already knew what he'd want to say. Next chapter, Aphrodite POV.


	5. Boundaries Would Be Crossed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love. Aphrodite POV, third person.

Aphrodite lounged on her fluffy white cloud, the Mist draped over her arms like a fine silk shawl. She was observing a tiny blue-walled kitchen through the fifth-floor window with particular interest. Two beautiful young adults were making breakfast, flipping pancakes and giggling at the state of their fridge. Aphrodite had it on good authority that any minute now, the one flipping pancakes would propose to the one rifling through the pathetic contents of their fridge. There would be tears. There would be ecstasy. There would be lots of kissing.

It was her kind of drama.

A screeching stream of angry words, accompanied by the violent sound of a fist pounding on a flimsy door, distracted her from the scene of sweet domesticity. Aphrodite frowned, looking toward the unwelcome commotion. A man was knocking—or punching, it was difficult to tell—on the door of the apartment three floors above the soon-to-be-engaged couple's. The poor door was rescued by a pair of thirty-somethings, who readily engaged in a full-on verbal war with the heavy knocker.

Aphrodite wrinkled her nose. It was a pleasant Sunday morning. Why mortals would want to scream at their neighbors about how noisy they were on a perfectly nice morning, she would never understand. Especially on a day where a delightful promise of love was about to be made.

The argument continued to grow in pitch and volume. It was drawing other mortals out of their apartments. Annoyed, angry faces flocked together to make a crowd.

Anger was infectious. Soon, a dozen mortals were all arguing with each other, voices raised and arms waving. 

Aphrodite didn't like the look of that congregation. Some were starting to make threatening gestures, movements intended to make others flinch back. One of them was loudly declaring the presence of a firearm in his apartment.

No, she didn't like the look of that at all.

Gods, as a rule, were strongly encouraged not to directly interact with the mortal world. This implicit rule was the only obstacle currently preventing Athena from impeaching Donald Trump with extreme godly prejudice.

But breaking up a small disagreement between neighbors was not nearly as weighty as indicting a president. And it was such a lovely morning, too.

Decision made, she pointed an imperious finger at the noisy gaggle squabbling in the hallway. “Stop it,” she commanded, then softened her voice so she was whispering straight into their ears. “There is no enemy here,” she crooned to them, loving, understanding, all-encompassing. “These are your neighbors, your brothers and sisters, your people, your family. _Do not dare forget your love for them.”_  
  
A cheerful pink burst of light went off over the knot of bickering mortals.

The arguments faltered. Then, common sense having been restored, the mortals began apologizing to each other, for all the right reasons. Soon the crowd dispersed.   
  
Aphrodite smiled in satisfaction. Who was the heroine of that film—Wonder Woman, was it? _Diana_ , she recalled. Diana had the right idea. Love was definitely stronger than hate.  
  
It was too bad Aphrodite couldn’t ask Ares to watch that movie with her. Sure, he was portrayed as a boring two-dimensional villain with a dumb mustache, and there _was_ the overall message of war being evil. But he would have liked the fight sequences.

She turned her attention back to the small blue-walled kitchen just in time to see the pancake flipper getting something out of his jeans pocket.

"Oooh," she murmured, excited.

 

* * *

 

Her afternoon was dedicated to sitting in a crowded food court and watching Hermes throw back obscene amounts of coffee.  
  
They liked to exchange gossip on a regular basis, what with them being in charge of private text messages and scandalous love affairs and whatnot. None of it was for blackmail material or anything. The fun was in the stories. Even the quietest gods needed some conversation once in a while, and they were the two that craved company the most. Between the two of them, they covered all sorts of topics: rumors, recent developments, funny stories they’d picked up in passing.

When Hermes occasionally rambled about old jokes and lost children after a particularly long day of work, she listened. When she sometimes spoke sadly of shattered families and unkept promises, unable to stop herself, he listened. It was an unspoken agreement, to listen when the other needed listening to.

And on this particular monthly gossip-day-out, after hours of unloading tale upon tale on each other, Hermes broached the subject of Apollo.  
  
Aphrodite gasped. “He’s in Seattle and he didn’t _call_ me? I had to go look at shoes alone because he was incognito! _I had to shop without a second opinion!”_  
  
“I don’t think it’s that simple,” said Hermes.  
  
He told her about Apollo and Artemis and their sibling diner date—at which Aphrodite almost giggled out loud. "That's unusual, isn't it?" she asked, trying to picture it. "Artemis voluntarily accompanying Apollo?"

"Yeah, I noticed," said Hermes.

He told her about Apollo’s face when he’d relayed the message from Zeus. Aphrodite tapped one perfectly polished nail on the scuffed silvery tabletop as she listened, thinking.

"Then Apollo asked me to come to a music festival with them," said Hermes.

"Oooh, a festival. Wonderful opportunity for spontaneous make-outs. Are you going to say yes?"

"Maybe. But not for the make-outs."

"You're missing out."

"I'm pretty sure I'm not."

"I should give Apollo a visit," she declared. "No doubt the poor dear misses me terribly."

"He's going to be with Artemis," Hermes warned. "She likes knives."

"Then it's a good thing Artemis isn't the one I'm visiting."

"I just meant—" He stopped. "Yeah, you're right. Artemis isn't the one you want to visit."

"Exactly." Why should Aphrodite worry herself with what the moon goddess thought of her, when Apollo was the one who mattered to her? The mere fact that Aphrodite represented romantic love was enough to earn Artemis's scorn.

Hermes stretched. "Well. I think that's all for today." He switched on his Caduceus-phone and started scrolling through the notifications.

"Are you sure you're done?" she asked him.

She had a . . . natural _attunement,_ of sorts, to emotions of love. Affection, lust, heartbreak, contentment—they tended to leak, and she could feel it as clearly as her own thoughts. She could block it out most of the time, but proximity was difficult. The stronger sensations tended to force their way down her throat like thick wine, steering her away from her sense of self and setting her core ringing. 

At the moment, the emotion wriggling inside and oozing all over her was Hermes's signature Castellan Grief. It hung over him like a sad, shabby shroud, perpetual and aching. 

"Yeah," said Hermes, "I'm sure." He cleared his throat. "I'm free on the fourth. Is 3:17 p.m. okay for you?"

The Castellan Grief did seem a bit muted today. Maybe he'd talk about it next month. "3:17 p.m. sounds perfect. I'll put it on my calendar."

 

* * *

 

She caught the tail end of the twins' argument as her luxury limousine rolled up the forest trail of Saint Edwards State Park.

"I told you what mattered—" Apollo was saying.

"—not telling me everything," Artemis was saying, a touch louder.

When the limo stopped beside them, Artemis wrinkled her nose as if there was a bad smell.

"Aphrodite," said Apollo, visibly surprised.  
  
Aphrodite climbed out of her limo with a brilliant smile plastered on her face. “Apollo! It’s been too long, darling. And is that you, Artemis? Fancy seeing you here!"  
  
“Aphrodite,” Artemis growled. “In case you failed to notice, I am in the middle of something here with this idiot brother of mine. If you could spontaneously work up a whim to visit him some other time, that would be great.”  
  
Apollo looked nervously between his twin and his friend.

"That _would_ be great," said Aphrodite, "except I really can't. My schedule this month is an absolute _wreck_. Celebrity weddings, fashion shows, you know the like. I feared if I didn't come today, I'd never have the time to come!" She clasped her hands together and gave Apollo a beseeching look. "I've missed my shopping partner. Can't you spare this one day for me?"

"Oh," said Apollo. "Um, yes, of course."

Artemis heaved a sigh. "Fine." She leveled a piercing gaze on Apollo. "This conversation is not over." Then she disappeared in a flash of silver.

Apollo fidgeted. "So," he said. "Hi."

He felt different. More raw, more open. The sparkly exterior he used to wrap around himself was punched through with holes and torn beyond repair. The pain, though. So _much_ pain. His load had grown exponentially. And was that . . . maturity?

Oh, he'd come a long way from the Apollo she was used to. But he was still the same sad puppy, and he was happy to see her. She could work with that.

"I'm sorry I didn't text you back," he said sheepishly.

"Your loss. I'm sure you missed me something horrible."

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Please excuse my sister. She's grumpy today.”  
  
She waved him off. “I know she doesn’t like me."  
  
He paled. “It’s not like that—“  
  
“It’s all right,” she reassured him. “I don’t care.” She was the goddess of beauty. Derision was nothing new.  
  
There were gods for the wise and the creative, patrons for the fierce, the joyful. But who would represent the vain, if not her? Who would look over the ones foolish enough to devote themselves to something so fleeting, so volatile as beauty? Vanity needed representation too. As long as there existed people who pursued beauty solely for beauty's sake, she would be their god. If that meant having the rest of the world look at her with distaste, then so be it.

To be fair, there was also that bit about her interest in weaving complicated romantic plots into the lives of innocent mortals. But really, a dash of love in a story was never a bad thing to have. Mortals loved much more vibrantly than she did. The emotions emanating from them could be so diverse! If she went a teensy bit over the top for the sake of some good storytelling, who could blame her?

She was trying to cut down on the manipulations, anyway. There were merits to naturally developing relationships, and the unpredictable nature of the drama that subsequently occurred was one of them.  
  
“Aphrodite,” said Apollo.  
  
“Oh, just a second,” she said. “I don’t want to be an adult, it makes me feel older than you.”  
  
As she transformed, he said, “You _are_ older than me."  
  
“You did _not_ just say that." She examined her teenage form with a critical eye. She had a smaller bust, but that was to be expected. On the upside, she remained taller than Apollo. “Not another word.”  
  
He flashed a tiny grin, lightning fast. By Olympus, she’d missed that grin.  
  
“Come, come,” she beckoned imperiously, looping her arm through his. “Now that we’re the same size, we can go shopping.”  
  
“Shopping?” he asked, sounding bewildered.  
  
“You failed to accompany me to try on glittery shoes last week. I expect full compensation.”

Her limo popped them over to the biggest mall in Rio de Janeiro, where she grabbed Apollo and plunged into the closest department store. He was awkward at first, but his numerous shopping experiences seemed to come back to him over the course of several stores. By the time they hit Forever 21, he had two shopping bags on one elbow and was running a finger over the coat rack, his brows furrowed in deep concentration.

She hummed as she rifled through the dresses, a habit she’d picked up from the god shopping with her. “Hey," she said, suddenly curious, "tell me what my hair color is?”  
  
She had no preferences or ideals when it came to beauty. When she looked in a mirror, the face that was supposed to reflect the beauty standards of the viewer became an indistinct blob. An eyebrow here, some freckles there—never the whole thing, and always changing.

Essentially, she had no face. There was nothing she could claim her own. But she liked to be looking in a mirror when touching up her makeup because it gave her the sense that there was something concrete to care for.  
  
It irked her sometimes, having a face for every single being in existence except for herself. But having no defined preference just meant everyone was beautiful to her, and she liked that part at least.  
  
Apollo glanced up from his study of flower-print shorts. “It’s black.”  
  
She considered the information. “Curly?”  
  
“Straight. A bit on the short side.”  
  
“How short?”  
  
“It hits your shoulders.”  
  
“Do I have bangs?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Chic,” she noted. Different from the long tresses Apollo usually preferred. Fascinating.

"So," she said, casually sifting through the racks labeled **30% OFF**. "You were human. What was that like?"

"Terrible." 

"All right." She paused her browsing to get a closer look at a leather jacket. _Hmm._ "Did love feel different when you were human?"

"I thought we were here to shop," Apollo said, rather petulantly.

"We are. This is how we do shopping. We look at clothes and have conversations about things we're uncomfortable about, like your obsession with fame that serves to distract you from your depressing thoughts regarding your father's explosive temper tantrums, and my unhealthy habit of engineering unnecessary drama in an effort to feel human emotions by proxy because I think my own emotions are not real enough."

"I seem to remember us having those conversations under the strict premise of 'these problems belong to someone who is definitely not me'. Since when did we do straightforwardness?"

"We should start doing straightforwardness. I've heard it's the next step toward maturity."

"That's ridiculous."

"Oh, well. I guess we'll take that next step some other day." She held up a mostly lavender blouse. "What do you think?"

He squinted at the blouse. "That's a lot of laces."

"Is that a no?"

"It's a yes. Go for it." 

She threw the blouse on the shopping cart between them, which was half full already. "Okay. So say 'someone you know' is a god who has experience becoming fully human. _Did_ love feel different for them when they were human?"

He frowned at a maroon sweater. "I'm not sure."

"Details, darling. Give me details." _It's important_.

"It's hard to explain." He scrunched up his face. "I think my time as a human did expand my emotional horizons, but I don't think it was because I was _human_. I'm back to being a god now, but the feelings I . . . acquired, while I was human, they aren't . . . diluted. I still feel things pretty intensely, despite my immortality status." He held up a tank top. "Is this too much sequins?"

Aphrodite blinked, then shook her head. "No." 

"I guess what I'm saying," he continued, dropping the tank top in the cart, "is that my capacity to love has never been different from that of a human's. I just . . . didn't know how to do it right. I was lacking in selflessness, or approachability, or some other essential human skill that most mortals learn by the time they're a decade old. Maybe it was a matter of not understanding how heavy the weight of a life can be, since I wasn't forced to think about death as something inescapable. Maybe it was something else." He sighed. "What am I saying, I know nothing about feelings. Why are you letting me run my mouth?"

Aphrodite smiled. "Your rambles are fascinating."

She hoped he couldn't see how shaken she was.

She knew Love better than any of the gods. But sometimes, when mortal emotions were invading her boundaries of self, it was as if she barely knew it at all. Love could be so much stronger than anything she knew firsthand. Love could be _exquisite_.

She had no idea how to coax those feelings from herself. Hers didn't feel real enough. Her Love didn't feel human enough.

So she'd believed gods were stunted. After all, they did not receive the things most mortals tended to receive from their families, their friends. No wonder they were broken.

She'd also surmised that their desire for mortal lovers was _because_ they were broken, because they were unable to offer each other the love they sorely needed. What else could they fill the gray stretch of the centuries with? Power, veneration, eternity—at times she thought their godhood a curse that promised an unquenchable thirst.

But she'd been wrong. Based on Apollo's account, being a god had nothing to do with the ability to love. 

She could no longer blame her immortality for her inhumanness. It was all her. She, at her essence, was stunted.

It was not a pleasant revelation.

"Aphrodite," said Apollo. "What are you thinking?"

She winked at him. "Fashion dilemmas, dear. I doubt you'd understand."

He didn't seem satisfied by her false cheer. "Why aren't you glad? I'm telling you, I believe we can feel love as humans do."

"There's a difference between 'can' and 'do', you know," she said lightly, turning her focus back to scarves. 

"Who cares if you're not human?"

Aphrodite looked at Apollo. 

"So maybe you don't feel the same things as humans," he said, frowning heavily at the coat rack before him. "Does it matter? " 

The waves of distress she could feel wafting from him suddenly spiked. Hmm, that couldn't be good. "Apollo," she said.

"They're _your_ feelings. They're as real as you are." He met her eyes. "Say you understand." 

". . . I understand," she lied. She took a step toward him. "Are you all right?"

"I—" He closed his eyes. "If you thought _your_ love wasn't real enough, what does that make me? How far gone was _I_ —?"

Ohhh, not good. She'd infected him. "How about we just forget about my silly little troubles? Silly me, saying things I don't mean."

"I knew I was despicable," he murmured, "but . . . I _thought_ I was in love, but what if it wasn't love? What if it was something twisted, what if—"

Aphrodite turned him around by the shoulder and made him face her. "I am going to say this once," she told him, "so listen closely. I know your heartbreak, and I know your love. I remember what you felt when you lost a lover. I remember how you screamed when you lost a friend. I felt your fondness for Meg McCaffrey, I felt your sense of duty to your companions, and I felt your grief when you mourned. Trust me when I say you have only ever been genuine in your love for those you care about."

He drew a deep, shuddering breath. "Aphrodite . . ."

"That's right, I _am_ Aphrodite. Do you know what that means? I'm the forefront authority in Love, and when I say you loved passionately enough to drive me to distraction, you _did_."

Apollo blinked at her.

"Now say you understand."

". . . I understand." 

"Good. And another thing." Aphrodite cupped Apollo's face in both hands. "You've been slacking off on your self-care routine, haven't you?" she scolded. "Repeat after me: I'm gorgeous and everyone loves me!"

"Uh—" He giggled weakly. "Maybe later?"

"No, not later. Now. Say it."

Apollo had been the one to teach her his self-inspiration trick. _Look in a mirror and tell yourself, you’re gorgeous and everyone loves you!_ he’d said. _You wouldn’t believe what it can do for your confidence!_

Apollo licked his lips. "I'm, um—" He gulped. "Does it have to be now?"

This wouldn't do. "You need a makeover," she addressed the handsome face in her hands. 

"I don't need a makeover."

"Of course you need a makeover. You're the sun god. You need to be . . . _shinier_." She patted his cheeks affectionately. "Don't you worry. When I'm done with you, you'll be the most gorgeous thing the world has ever seen."

"More gorgeous than you?" he asked, trying for a smile.

"I'm the goddess of beauty. I'm secure enough in my own fabulousness to drag you up to standards."

"I can't decide if that was intended to be insulting or not."

"We should switch up to early twenties," Aphrodite said thoughtfully. "Much more oomph from a young adult body. Come on, age up. Chop chop."

The process of crafting a brand new look for Apollo cost them the rest of the day. When the skies darkened and the cities lit up with artificial lights, Aphrodite dragged the sun god into a random Las Vegas nightclub.

They were beautiful, and the mortals in the club knew it. Strangers readily approached them, offering a drink, a dance, a number. Aphrodite took it upon herself to filter out their suitors, dismissing the weird ones, cursing the malicious ones, and allowing the rare nice one to buy them drinks. Apollo, squirming and nervous at first, slowly lost his anxiousness as the deluge of compliments and smiles continued. She watched him unfurl like a fine golden flower, dazzling his mortal patrons with his usual pretty face and eccentric personality. 

When Apollo finally fixated on one person for longer than ten minutes, she sat back and congratulated herself on a job well done. It was highly probable nothing romantic would come of this night, but casual companionship would be enough to make this an enjoyable evening for both participants.

Her duties as wingwoman finished, she succumbed to habit, scanning the rest of the club for potential sources of drama. Then she spotted a _very_ attractive mortal. 

Ooooh. Jackpot.

"I need to go," she muttered in Apollo's ear. "Can you manage not to get drugged or kidnapped and take yourself safely home without me?"

"Aphrodite," he said on a frequency only she could hear, "I'm a _god_."

"I know, darling." She patted his head. "Let's do this again soon, okay? Enjoy yourself!"

She left Apollo to his conversation buddy and cut through the pulsing crowd (many of whom did a double-take as she pushed past, staring dumbly at the back of her head) to the woman doing shots with several others. The woman met her eyes. Her mouth opened slightly.

_I wonder who I am in your eyes._

"Hi," said Aphrodite, throwing on her best smile. "Do you mind if I join you?"

 

* * *

 

(Artemis crossed her arms. "Where have you been?"

". . . Clubbing."

"Is that glitter?"

Apollo fidgeted. "It's eyeshadow."

She let out a long-suffering sigh. "Did Aphrodite take you?"

"I certainly wouldn't have thought to go alone." He suddenly grinned. It looked genuine. "Multiple people bought me drinks. Do you know what that means?"

"I have a feeling I don't want to know."

"It means they think I'm hot!"

"I was right. I didn't want to know that.")

 

* * *

 

Five days later, Aphrodite was curled up on a pink chaise lounge with Ares. They were settled in the mouth of a cave in the middle of who-knows-where, sunning themselves. A perfect romantic getaway.

"This is nice," she sighed, snuggling up to Ares. A tiny part of her worried Hephaestus might have cameras hidden in the shadows. She pushed the thought away.

Theirs had been a forced marriage. Aphrodite liked talking, sharing emotions, building a rapport. Hephaestus wasn't that kind of person. He was angry at her for making him a laughingstock with her infidelity. She was angry at him for treating her like a pretty object and trying to hold her against her will. But every now and then she was sorry. They’d both gotten the short end of the stick, merely on different matters—her on her freedom, him on his parents.

Besides, they'd arrived at something like a ceasefire over the millennia. As long as she and Ares weren't up in Hephaestus's face about it, he didn't go out of his way to expose them. 

Ares grunted. He fiddled with her hand. “Did you meet anyone cool over the weekend?”  
  
“A war veteran,” she said, threading her fingers through his. “I think she was missing a leg.” Healthy self-love was such a wonder to feel that Aphrodite had been unable to spare the attention required to count the number of her newest lover’s limbs.  
  
Ares whistled. “I would’ve tapped that.”  
  
“Too bad, I got her first,” Aphrodite giggled. “Did _you_ get together with a mortal recently?”  
  
“Nah. A lot of wars going on.”  
  
“Oh.” She sobered. That must be why she was sensing an uptick in heartbreak around the world.  
  
“I heard you went to meet Apollo,” said Ares, noticeably changing the subject.

Aphrodite smiled, held on to Ares’s hand a little tighter, and told him about her shopping spree with the sun god.

For some reason, Ares felt _right_ for her in a way Hephaestus didn't. The war god was loud in his passion, but never cruel to those he favored. The first time she'd admitted to anger, he'd given her a battle ax to hold and a hundred vases to smash. He didn't tell her what she shouldn't do. He made it clear that no one could order him about, and when she was with him, it was as if she were as free as he was. 

Of all the faces she wore, her face for Ares was the one she considered the closest to real. There was something anchoring about being able to return to someone, knowing that however else the rest of the world saw her, she would always be the same person to him.

She thought her love for him might even be allowed to be called real. It was the strongest she could feel in her stunted state. She took pride in those emotions. They were the most human she could manage.

Then she remembered:  _Who cares if you're not human?_

What an unusual notion.

 _They're my feelings_ , she silently mouthed, trying it out. _They're as real as I am._

It sounded nice. Maybe she'd believe it someday.

Somewhere else in the world, she could feel Annabeth Chase laughing as she played hacky sack with Percy Jackson and Grover Underwood on the edges of her old high school’s football field. She could feel her dear Piper tuck her chin over a visiting Leo Valdez’s shoulder and listen to him swear at Mario Cart. She felt Hazel Levesque press a shy kiss on Frank Zhang’s nose, blushing furiously. She felt Reyna Ramirez-Arellano walking Nico di Angelo through buying a train ticket, fond exasperation lacing her voice.  
  
Love was painful. Love was devastating. But more often than not, Love was the best damn thing in the entire universe. These moments of acceptance and caring were what she was addicted to. They built up the foundations of her strength, helped her endure the heartache and sorrow that screamed for her attention.  
  
It was a burden, but at the same time, it was a blessing. They could offer her a throne, the world, a weapon for her hands and the promise of respect—it wouldn’t matter. She wouldn’t trade away this Love for anything.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aphrodite and her Feelings thing is a fond headcanon of mine. There isn't much of her to be found on canon, and she comes off as a unique snowflake, much like Apollo. I figured, maybe she has some cool godly relationships and her own brand of angst behind the scenes? (Disclaimer: I know nothing about shopping. Or clubbing.)
> 
> The reason Apollo saw Aphrodite with Meg's hair is because he really likes/misses Meg's hairdo. (But just in case, I would like to reassure everyone that Apollo's love for Meg is not romantic at all.)
> 
> I don't deny that Aphrodite can be a hateful, dangerous god, but I chose to focus on a different aspect of her. I hope that was okay. Next chapter, Ares. (Oh gods, _Ares_.) (Kudos, Comments, and Bookmarks are very appreciated. They fuel me. Thank you for fueling me.)


	6. The Whole Time I Was Praying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fear. Ares POV, third person. (This chapter is half the reason for the T rating of this fic.)

Ares propped his arms up on his greatsword's hilt as he observed the messy battle playing out a good fifty yards away from where he sat, feet hanging over the lip of the hot earthen roof and squinting to see the combatants through clouds of dust scuffed up by bloodstained boots. He was waiting.

This was a pretty pivotal battle. He was fifty percent sure Athena would show.

Ares enjoyed carnage. In the thick of battle, every trivial thought was wiped out, replaced by an electrifying instinct to survive. There was no place for pretenses or lies or underhanded political manipulations on a battlefield. There was only the match of weapon against weapon, and the purposeful, determined violence of human against human. War was simple. Honest. Mortals were truest to themselves in the midst of war.   
  
Most of the other gods didn’t share his views, he knew. Especially Athena. She was his most outspoken opponent, both in the stuffy council rooms and on the dusty battlefields.   
  
He thought it hypocritical. War was what she was built on, what gave her immortal power. A war god that did not love War was an anomaly. He acknowledged her necessity because Wisdom gave logic to mindless carnage, and military intelligence was a source of unpredictable twists in warfare that made it all the more exciting. But that didn’t change the fact that her ideals felt . . . _tame_.  
  
“Look at what we are,” he’d told her once, smirking. “Two thrones out of twelve of the highest seats on Olympus, taken by gods of war. How many thrones does your precious Wisdom have? How many for the Sea, or the Sky?”  
  
“But you enjoy it, don’t you?” Athena had said. “Meaningful sacrifices are one thing. Unnecessary loss is another. You mistake our purpose as harbingers of death.”  
  
“Isn’t that what War is?”

She'd walked away, giving up on the idea of a conversation with him.

Athena thought she was better than him. Ares called bullshit. War was War, however she wanted to look at it.  
  
Besides, if he was such a deplorable force of evil, mortals shouldn’t have given him this much power in the first place. In a way, everything that he was came from their unwillingness to preserve the “peace” they constantly glorified. If mortals really wanted War gone, they could stop prattling about it like demented bunnies and actually _do_ something to drag War down from the pedestal of fear and necessity they’d placed it on.  
  
As that had about as much chance of happening as old man Hades becoming the most popular Olympian, he wasn’t too worried.

The choppy sound of gunfire went on and off like a broken record. Grenades scooped out craters in the pockmarked earth. Soldiers were felled and carried away by their comrades. Ares waited another hour or so before admitting to himself that Athena wasn't coming.

Neither of them could actively participate in battle unless the other was present. It was their rule of non-engagement, created to avoid upsetting the natural balance of things. But his mere presence provided an undeniable advantage to the side he favored. If she wasn't showing, it meant she considered his influence inconsequential to the outcome of this battle. Which meant this battle was already as good as lost. 

Ares made a noise of disgust. Looked like he wouldn't be seeing any action today either.

He was pondering the merit of staying to watch the rest of the battle play out when movement from the building opposite him caught his eye. Soldiers were dragging a bound figure out of one of the crumbling houses. The prisoner had a broken leg and a face white with pain.

Seeing the blindfolded figure wrapped in ropes reminded him of _—_  
  
Ares stood up abruptly. Well, time to leave, before he got hit in the face with  
  
_—dark, suffocating, cramped, wounded, faint laughter filtering through rough ceramic, I'll kill them, I'll kill them, I'M GOING TO KILL THEM—_  
  
. . . that. Shit.  
  
He tried to keep his breathing nice and even, leaning on his greatsword to keep himself upright. His mind was blaring sirens at him, throwing shivering images of the pitch-black insides of a jar in front of his eyes. His senses were in an all-out riot, urging him to  _kill, destroy, break, break bones, break walls, break the world, CRUSH THEM TO A PULP—_  
  
He barely resisted going on a slaughtering rampage. The mind-numbing clarity of battle sounded real nice, but he refused to cave to instincts borne of a twin-giants-and-a-jar kind of ordeal. It would feel too much like admitting how big of an impact they'd left on him, and that would be defeat.

Mortals had a word for this. They called it Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He disliked the term on principle, because trauma came from fear and fear was weakness.

The Jar Thing hadn't even been that frightening. For crying out loud, he'd fought fucking _Typhon,_ the monster to end all monsters. Nothing should be worse than that.

It had just been a rather long stretch of captivity. 

(He'd been unable to look in the twin giants' direction during the latest battle at Athens. Instead he'd focused on the horde before him and torn _them_ to shreds.)

Godly brains just worked weird. Some memories faded away until they were nothing but indistinct noise. Some memories stayed in the background, quietly unobtrusive until called upon. And some asshole memories claimed a place in the forefront of the mind, waiting for a chance to pop out in 1080p resolution whenever they fucking wanted.

Whatever. Being a god made no sense.

Two more prisoners were dragged outside and made to kneel. Ares realized he was about to be witness to an execution. The soldiers had realized their side was going to lose, and they had no intention of letting the prisoners go free.

 _Shit_. 

The moment he was calm enough to focus, he gathered his power and teleported the fuck out of there. He didn't need to see this.

 

* * *

 

Ares strode toward a cluster of mortals beside a freshly dug grave. His boots left deep imprints in the neat green grass of the memorial park. It was a cloudless Saturday, the kind of day that was perfect for outdoor sports and barbecue.

He took his place next to a young blonde man, who was standing a little ways back from the group and was pretending not to have flinched at the war god's approach.

Ares pushed his sunglasses up on his head and stuck his hands in his jeans pockets. “Why are you here?" he asked. "He wasn’t an archer.”  
  
“He had good aim,” said Apollo, dressed in mourning black. “If he’d chosen to go into sports, he could've earned a medal or two.”  
  
“If he’d gone into sports, there would be more funerals.”  
  
“If there hadn't been a war, this entire graveyard wouldn’t exist.”

“Are you angry?”  
  
“At the people who decided they needed a war, yes. I’m reserving judgment on how much I’m blaming you for it until I know what you think about this death.”

Ares watched a small boy quietly spilling tears onto the grass. “It was a good death.”  
  
“It was _unnecessary_ ,” Apollo hissed. He began glowing, like some kind of golden torch.   
  
The mortals paid the glowing no mind. Ares didn't either. “That depends on who you ask.”

Apollo sucked in a long, seething breath, then got himself under control. His golden halo shrunk back into him. "Fine, then. I won't ask you."

They were quiet for a bit. One of the humans started saying something in honor of the fallen. 

Ares hadn’t followed Apollo’s quest as a mortal all that closely. Apollo cried too much. At some point it had stopped being potential teasing material and become something too uncomfortable to watch.  
  
Ares did see him slay Python, though, and as a mortal no less. It'd been impressive. But it looked like leveling up in Badass wasn't all that Apollo had done. Ares didn't remember the sun god getting this angry on the behalf of a nameless mortal before.

"Since when do you care?" he asked, bluntly curious.

"Since I found out just how scary death is."

Ares recalled the few glimpses of Apollo's quest he'd seen and knew that wasn't quite right. "You weren't scared of dying."

"I wasn't scared for _me_." Apollo paused. "Not for the dying part, anyway. Torture was still plenty scary." 

Ares grunted. There was a moment of silence.

"Are you going to mock me for being scared?"

"What, do you want me to?"

"No."

They fell quiet again. The service continued. Apollo looked like he wanted to hug the crying boy, who was crying increasingly harder. Ares studied the clouds and imagined his jerk of a father eyeing pretty girls somewhere off the coast of Italy.

"How do you bear it?" Apollo asked, out of the blue. His eyes were fixed on the coffin. "When everyone blames you and they're right to do it. How do you stand it?"

"I ignore them."

"But . . . ."

"You're assuming I'd be bothered."

"Are you saying you're not? Not even a little?"

"Someone's always gonna blame me for existing. That's half the reason mortals thought up gods in the first place." Ares shrugged. "I figure, half the blame's on them, so why feel guilty? It's not like I asked to be War."

Apollo chewed at his bottom lip.

“Didn't you have a goth brat that turned into an oracle and blamed you for getting his brother's head chopped off?”  
  
“He had his reasons,” Apollo mumbled.  
  
"Yeah, and you had yours.”

Ares thought he heard Apollo mutter, "That's not helpful," under his breath.

Silence fell between them once more. Ares let his mind wander.

He was mentally cataloging the spears he currently owned, largest to smallest— _anti-battalion spear, anti-tank spear, big electric spear, slightly smaller electric spear with the funky squiggle carvings, oh wait I forgot the big gold spear_ —when it occurred to him that given Apollo's recent mortal escapades, the sun god might be having the same sort of memory trouble he was having.

So he asked. "Do your memories ever behave weirdly?"

Apollo frowned. "I don't understand."

Ares tried to explain. "It's like, when a memory you don't like keeps popping up in your head. Does that ever happen to you?"

"Do you mean, like flashbacks?"

"Yeah, something like that."

Apollo tapped a finger on his leg. "No, I don't think that's ever happened to me. I do have waking visions occasionally, but they're not caused by PTSD or anything. I don't even have PTSD."

Ares was annoyed. Partly because Apollo seemed to categorize these "flashbacks" as "PTSD", which was still a term he disliked on principle; partly because this meant he still didn't have anyone to compare notes on stupid memory weirdness with; and partly because Apollo was a dumbass in denial. He resisted calling Apollo out on his bullshit. It wasn't his business.

"Flashbacks should be treated with therapy, you know," Apollo said carefully. "Lack of treatment can result in unreasonable anger or misdirected violence."

"Jumping at sudden movements and suicidal behavior also warrants therapy, asshole," Ares snapped, failing to restrain himself. "Don't patronize me."

Apollo was immediately chagrined. "Sorry," he muttered. Then, in a smaller voice, "I don't need therapy—"

"Don't care, shut up."

Apollo shut up.

A couple of minutes went by. Ares felt the tiniest bit guilty for blowing his lid. 

"Look," he began. "Pretending it didn't happen doesn't work. Not in the long run. And sometimes it doesn't fade away, like, at all." He kicked at the grass. Clumps tore free, spraying dirt over his boots. "Find a way to deal. Maybe tell someone about it. Letting it sit won't make it better."

Apollo glanced at him. ". . . I'll take your word for it."

There was a beat of silence.

"You're nearly civil when you're not on a murdering rampage."

"You're less insufferable when you're not making stupid videos about me to spread around Olympus."  
  
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Apollo, very brightly.

The coffin was buried, the service wrapped up. Two gods walked out of the memorial park, side by side.

"There's this band," said Apollo. "They played at a festival in San Francisco last week, and they're having a concert next month. Do you want to come? Hermes and Artemis already said yes. Aphrodite's welcome, of course."

Ares shrugged. "I'll talk to her about it."

"Great. If there's anyone else you want to include, feel free to invite them too." 

A silver-eyed girl was waiting for them next to his Harley Davidson. Artemis's gaze automatically latched onto Ares, recognizing him for what he was—a threat.

She looked ready to pull out her knives and come for his throat, which was promising. Ares responded to her death-glare with a predatory grin, one warrior to another. _You wanna go, Huntress?_ He was never averse to a good fight.

Beside him, Apollo sighed. "You didn't need to come. I can take care of myself."

And just like that, Artemis lost all interest in Ares. Her eyes were only for Apollo. "You forgot you could eat Ambrosia and starved yourself for months. I have no faith in you."

"Harsh, Sis!"

"Truth can be harsh."

Gross. They actually sounded like mortal siblings. Aphrodite had warned him of how drastically the twins' relationship had changed, but being forewarned didn't make it any less weird.

"Well, I'm leaving." He kicked the side stand up and swung his leg over his motorcycle, directing his parting words to Apollo: "Let's not attend the same funeral for at least two centuries."

 

* * *

 

("You _are_  all right?" Artemis asked. "If he did anything, I am going to hunt him."

"I'm fine. Nothing happened. We just attended a service together."

"You look like you swallowed a Hydra head."

"I do not."

"You do."

"I do not."

Artemis huffed. "Very well. We can talk more when you're willing. Shall we go get milkshakes, or—"

“In the Cave of Trophonius,” Apollo said abruptly, “I wanted to die.”

Artemis slowly turned toward him. ". . . Why?"

"I don't know. I was hurting. I'd done bad things. I thought dying might be okay."

His sister was a statue. “. . . Do you still want to?”  
  
“I . . . .“ He swallowed. “I don’t know.”  
  
Artemis searched his face for a moment longer, then pulled him down to wrap her arms around his neck. Apollo pressed his nose to her shoulder, closed his eyes, and focused on the unnecessary act of breathing.

"Thanks for coming for me," he mumbled.)

 

* * *

 

Hephaestus's second favorite forge was located on a volcanic island smack dab in the middle of the Pacific. The rhythmic _clang_ of his hammer could be heard from miles away.

Ares pulled open the solid metal door to the main workshop and blinked the pitch-black, ceramic insides of The Jar out of his eyes. It was hard to breathe. The heat was suffocating, trapped inside by thick black walls of hardened lava. If the workshop hadn't been so brightly lit by the glowing red forge, he wouldn't have been able to come near this place at all. How Hephaestus could stand to be holed up in here for years at a time he would never understand.

"I'm here for my daggers," he said, hovering near the entrance. He'd dropped them off for repairs some weeks ago.

Hephaestus didn't look up from his work. Red and yellow sparks flew at each downstroke of his hammer. "Table in the corner."

Ares hesitated for the barest second, then forced himself to walk inside. He nearly choked halfway there and had to clutch the table when he reached it to keep his balance. Spots swam in his vision. The walls started closing in.

Logically, he knew that he was a being of pure energy and could survive without air indefinitely. But having a humanoid form meant his body found it natural to breathe, and not being able to do that was, well, _bad_. 

His head was ringing. He kept seeing The Jar, and there wasn't enough air in his lungs. _This is so stupid_. Hephaestus was watching, he couldn't afford to be weak here, he needed to snap out of it but the walls kept pressing in and he couldn't  _breathe_ —

Suddenly there was fresh air, blissfully cool on his hot skin. He gulped it down, great big mouthfuls of it, grateful for the reprieve and ashamed to be desperate for it. When his vision cleared, he realized that giant gaping holes had opened up in the volcanic walls like crude windows, letting in the sky and the sea breeze. He looked to Hephaestus in confusion.

"It was stuffy," Hephaestus grunted.

 _Yeah, and it didn't bother you in the least_.

He'd never been particularly close to his brother. After Aphrodite had happened, they’d quickly become something worse than strangers, and nothing had been lost because there'd been nothing to _be_ lost. Ares regarded Hephaestus's clinginess with open contempt and Hephaestus despised Ares for his adultery. They hated each other's guts. There was no way Hephaestus would intentionally create windows in his workshop to let Ares breathe, and Ares would gladly choke rather than apologize for loving Aphrodite.

Aphrodite was beautiful. He could talk about stuff with her, from mortal hookups to changes in battlefronts oceans away. She liked action movies because they usually contained at least one love-related subplot. He liked finding out-of-the-way places to take her on a date. And the sex was mindblowing.  
  
(It felt almost inevitable, how he’d fallen for her. War was built on Love. The higher-up mortals threw around hoity-toity justifications like honor and justice, but in order for a war to be fought, the little people had to be willing to fight for the ones they wanted to protect. Love was a popular catalyst for bloodshed.)

No, Ares didn’t regret loving Aphrodite. He was meant for her the same way she was meant for him, and Hephaestus hated them for it.

_So why did you make windows in your walls?_

Things he couldn't understand made Ares angry. He snatched up his daggers and stomped back to the door, lightheaded and self-conscious.

He stopped at the threshold. 

Maybe lack of oxygen had made him sentimental. Or maybe seeing Artemis—who used to be exceptionally vocal in her distaste of Apollo’s everything—scowl and worry for her brother had given him the idea that reparations were a thing. Maybe seeing Apollo bite his lips bloodless and hold himself still for some unnamed mortal’s funeral had reminded him gods weren’t static creatures. Not really.  
  
So he spoke. “Apollo wants to invite you to some concert."  
  
Hephaestus continued hammering his glowing hunk of metal. “. . . I assume you and Aphrodite were invited too.”  
  
Ares shrugged. “It won’t be a date, if that’s what you’re asking. Apollo said Hermes and Artemis are coming too.”  
  
“A regular family gathering, is it?”  
  
“Zeus isn’t invited. None of the older bores are either.” Hopefully.  
  
Hephaestus was quiet. His hammer was not.  
  
Ares didn’t know why he was trying so hard to convince his brother. He didn’t care _that_ much. This was just a passing whim.  
  
“I’ll think about it,” said Hephaestus.

. . . That was a better answer than he'd been expecting. “Alright," Ares said, and left.

 

* * *

 

Ares settled down on his chosen roof of the day and braced himself for a long wait. It was the D-Day for a military operation of considerable magnitude. He was seventy percent sure Athena would show. 

Tanks rumbled into position. Snipers adjusted their scopes and soldiers performed last-minute ammunition checks. Several drones flitted about overhead like a bunch of annoying flies. Ares eyed them with distaste, wishing he could shoot the machines down.

War wasn't what it used to be. What had once been an intimate and glorious affair of dust and blood was being downgraded to middle-aged piglets in leather chairs threatening smaller nations with superior technology and a big red button. He yearned to show those self-proclaimed warmongers what a true battle looked like firsthand. Maybe then they would not think War as simple as pushing some buttons.

The first of the tanks fired at the yellowed concrete buildings serving as a barricade for the opposing side, an ear-splitting _bang_ announcing the shot.

It would've hit square on the mark if something hadn't dropped out of the sky, cracking the earth as it landed. The missile was flicked aside, dismissed as casually as a piece of lint off a sweater. It exploded some thirty feet away from the intended target, showering the vicinity with broken rocks and soot.

Ares jumped to his feet.  
  
From the debris emerged a tall, imposing figure, clad in Imperial Gold helm and shining battle armor. The tip of her bronze spear and the eldritch horror that was her shield glinted in the sun like twin beacons of challenge.  
  
Athena was here.

"Yes," he said. 

The war goddess had come to face him.

"Yes," he said again, then roared, “YES!”—in approval, in delight, in uncontrollable exhilaration that burned like wildfire through him. He summoned his broadsword and drew the blade from the scabbard in one clean motion, the sharp sound of slithering steel serving as his own clarion note of challenge. “YES, ATHENA!”  
  
_This_ : a windswept battlefield, a formidable opponent, a bout of strength with sword and spear and shield. This was what he was. _This_ was War.  
  
He discarded the scabbard and gripped the hilt with both hands. Athena shifted her stance, leveled her spear over Aegis. The clay roof shattered under Ares’s feet as he burst into motion and flew straight for the rictus visage of Medusa.  
  
Fear immediately tried to claw at his ankles, heavy and familiar. _Dark, breathless_ , whispered his mind. _Pain, jeering laughter, HELPLESSNESS—_

He crushed the whispers down mercilessly. He was facing the goddess of war. This was no time to surrender to fear.  
  
The instant before their weapons met, Ares grinned. Athena’s eyes flashed under her helm, storm clouds struck through with lightning.  
  
The two gods collided with an almighty _crash_ , setting the earth and skies ringing with the sound of their fight.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ares is crazy. I'm not sure what I've done with his character, but what the hell. I'm going with it. (He has no healthy coping mechanisms. None. He is also a pansy who didn't want to say he was the one inviting Hephaestus to a concert and so used Apollo's name.) I know nothing about war, but I do know that I hate it. I in no way condone Ares's mad thirst for blood. 
> 
> My writing process for this fic goes something like: publish chapter => try to write first draft for next chapter => fail and mope for two weeks => read through comments to hype myself up => rewrite everything => edit => despair => edit some more => decide nothing can be done to salvage this disaster => publish chapter. _*puts excuse on a silver platter*_ Hope you guys are feeling okay with monthly updates! Thank you for the kudos, comments, and bookmarks. Next chapter, Athena. (YAY.)


	7. You Would Read In My Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pride. Athena POV, third person.

For someone who’d once charged into a nigh-hopeless battle to save his brothers and sisters from a tyrannical monster, her father was infuriatingly far from the image of an ideal ruler.

 _Just because there is no Great Prophecy telling you to restrain your reproductive urges doesn't mean you should indulge_. "You've been spending more time above the Italian coast than usual. What are you trying to avoid?"

Zeus grunted, refusing to look at her.

Athena could feel a headache coming on. "Lord Zeus. What may I assist you with?"

Zeus kept up his stubborn silence for several moments. Then he muttered, "Apollo is acting out."

 _No wonder_ , Athena almost said aloud. But she didn't, because she was a four-thousand-year-old paragon of wisdom and her self-control was better than that. "He will come to you on his own time."

"His disobedience continues to be a disgrace."

Well. "I will see what I can do to expedite his return to Olympus." She'd given Apollo enough time to realize that his hatred of his fellow gods was mostly unfounded. Artemis should have helped him cool his head a bit. Perhaps it was time for her to make a visit in person. "On one condition."

"Condition?" Zeus growled.

"I will be shielding my conversation with him from you. My persuasive tactics may not be to your particular taste."

Zeus grunted. "Very well."

She deserved a raise. Preferably in the form of smiting Donald Trump.

 

* * *

 

It was surprisingly difficult to procure Apollo’s location.

“Why?” was Hermes’s first reaction to her request of the sun god’s whereabouts.

“I wish to speak with him.”

Hermes hemmed and hawed and hedged near expertly. Athena was impressed.

Unfortunately, time was a valuable commodity even to immortals.

“I understand one of your children has just entered college.”

She immediately had Hermes's full attention. “What about it?”

“He is clever, but a blessing from the goddess of Wisdom wouldn’t be amiss, don’t you think?”

Hermes was obsessed with the functions and structure of family. He was blindly loyal and insisted on ignoring blatant signs of betrayal in favor of naive faith. He could excuse his “family” of any fault, as long as he could see a hint of what he considered remorse. His lonely childhood might have had something to do with the unreasonably optimistic attitude toward blood relations.

When dealing with Hermes, family was a dependably effective tool of manipulation.

(She could have gone for the Castellan woman; she could have threatened him with the promise of their father’s anger over his regular visits to a mad mortal. It would've been quick, and effective, but she had deemed it unnecessary. Too much force could result in unintended complications. Knowing when to use certain information and when not to was a valuable technique of its own.)

Predictably, Hermes caved.

“You’d do that? I mean—Travis is a smart kid, but he could use some caution. Street smarts, that’s valuable.”

“I am aware. So you will give me Apollo’s location?”

“You’re not going to do anything bad to him, right?” Hermes fiddled nervously with his ever-present Caduceus-phone. “You won’t drag him back to Father by force?”

“I know better than most that violence isn’t always the answer. I merely wish to speak with him.”

“Okay. All right. Just—don’t make him do what he doesn’t want to do. He's trying.”

Fascinating. It seemed Hermes now counted Apollo as a close family member. A high honor. “I will keep that in mind.”

Yes, she would keep Hermes’s affection for the sun god in mind.

Information was a balm. It provided solutions, new options. Accumulate enough information, and it became knowledge.

Knowledge was power. Power was Wisdom’s first prerogative.

No one listened to the powerless wise.

 

* * *

 

Athena materialized a block over and walked, preferring a less noticeable entrance. Apollo and Aphrodite were giggling like schoolchildren over a dozen magazines spread out on top of a picnic table, in the middle of a nondescript park belonging to a small neighborhood. The skies were slightly overcast. There was a promise of rain on the winds.

It was a shame Artemis wasn’t present. The moon goddess tended to put much trust in Athena. If she’d been here, it would’ve been easier to engineer an atmosphere that veered favorably towards Athena.

No matter. This wasn’t the sort of task that needed all possible cards thrown in. Apollo was easy.

Aphrodite spotted her approach first. “Ugh,” the goddess of love muttered. “Unexpected John Cena.”

“Really? Where?” Apollo’s head popped up like a meerkat’s. When his eyes met Athena’s, he lost his grip on the giant blue marker he’d been using to add artificial sparkles to pictures of luxurious shoes.

“Aphrodite.” Athena directed her gaze at the sun god, who looked like he was inches away from fleeing. “May I have a private word with Apollo?”

Aphrodite shrugged. “Well, since you asked so nicely.”

Aphrodite didn’t like Athena, but she didn’t actively try to challenge her authority. It was a sort of acknowledgment—the ceding of ground to a superior tactician. Athena believed there was some jealousy involved in Aphrodite's animosity towards her. Athena didn’t require a command on human sentiments to carry out her duties without flaw, and Aphrodite begrudged Athena’s untainted competence in her area of discipline.

The love goddess’s insecurities were exploitable, but Athena decided the situation didn’t warrant any more pressure. Aphrodite had already acquiesced.

"What?" Apollo squeaked, latching onto Aphrodite's arm. "No, no, no. You're not really leaving me alone with her, are you?"

Aphrodite firmly placed both hands on his cheeks. "You're a god, darling. You can manage yourself. Remember our motivational phrase?"

"I—yeah, our phrase, okay—"

"Repeat after me: I'm gorgeous and Athena can't touch this!"

"Ah—mm, that's a new one—"

"Do you like it?"

"I think so, yes—"

Athena cleared her throat. "Aphrodite."

"Bossy, bossy." The goddess of love dramatically flipped her long hair in Athena's direction before poofing away into pink smoke. Apollo was left behind, blinking owlishly amidst the cloud of her exit.

"Shall we sit?" said Athena, concentrating on not coughing on the sickly sweet scent of Aphrodite's perfume wafting in the air.

"Is this conversation going to take that long? I'd much prefer to get this over with before my legs have any chance of tiring."

Gods didn't tire, but Athena ignored his slip-up. "That depends on how receptive you will be of my suggestion."

It was intriguing to see Apollo pull off a defiant glare that belonged on the faces of mortal heroes. "Answer's no. Are we done?"

"I haven't made my suggestion yet."

The sun god sighed. "Fine. Fine, fine, fine." Ignoring the benches, he jumped up onto the picnic table and sat there instead, tightly crossing both arms and legs. He looked like a rebellious golden pretzel. "There. I'm sitting."

Athena took her place on the bench with calm poise, conducting herself as a mature deity should. Apollo huffed at her and coiled tighter into himself.

"It's good to see you," Athena started.

"Liar," Apollo muttered.

"Why would I lie?"

“Is that a rhetorical question? Because you can’t trick me with those anymore. I know what sarcasm is. I know things now.”

It was obvious he didn't understand the concept of sarcasm, but Athena chose not to enlighten him. "Father is growing impatient. When will you return to Olympus?"

"Hopefully never."

"You don't mean that."

"Oh, I do."

"Dishonesty to your own desires is unbecoming."

Apollo grinned sharply, sunlight and vengeance personified. "Why would I lie?" 

A good reaction. It was better that he be confident than despondent. "Why did you fight so hard to regain immortality?"

"Because it's _mine_. He had no right to take it from me."

A refusal to directly address their father. Not unexpected. "He is king. He has all the right, whether we want him to or not."

Apollo uncurled his limbs. "Sounds treasonous. Is it okay to say that? I know I'm not worried about falling out of his favor, but _you?"_

He appeared sufficiently entertained by the idea of her disrespect toward Zeus. "I'm shielding our conversation from him. He will not attempt to listen in."

"You have that much faith in him?"

"I have faith in my own abilities to notice when he starts meddling with my shields."

"Well. I suppose I'll have to take your word for it."

"You should. I do not lie." Lies were crude. There were better ways to deceive. "Now. Will you hear my proposition?"

Apollo snorted. “I know what you’re going to say, Athena. ‘Apollo, you’re not acting like a proper god. Where’s your ignorance and cruelty?’ Well _excuse me_ , but after bleeding red for a few months I’ve had a change of heart. If we even have hearts at all.” His face was flushed golden. “You can’t make me change back, and you can't force me to step one foot on Olympus. I want nothing to do with that place. There. Conversation done. You can leave now.”

Fascinating. “What makes you think I’m here to deliver such an admonishment?”

“That’s what you do.”

“I don’t have a problem with your recent conduct—except for the slight matter of you avoiding Father. On the contrary, I think your motives are admirable, though your actions may be found wanting.”

Apollo looked like he had just seen something he’d never seen before during his four thousand years of existence. “You . . . _admirable?_ Are you trying to make a joke? I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”

“I don’t.”

“Very funny. Stop trying to unbalance me, I’m terrible at playing this passive-aggressive politician game.”

She was being candid, actually. Apollo's inclination to interpret her sincerity as something more insidious wasn't harmful, but it was annoying.

He was more unpredictable than he’d been before, allowing his volatile emotions to run wild. That could pose a problem in the future. (She had copious reasons to dread reckless heroism and personal loyalty. At some point, she had gone as far as to designate a specific kind of headache to Percy Jackson and his foolish fatal flaw.)

But Apollo was also more empathetic. He understood mortal life. His comprehension of humanity was better than what even Hestia could hope for.

Athena thought Apollo’s version of an emotionally susceptible immortal might be the ideal model of a god. Less bad came of deities who wished to be kind.

Olympus could do with another compassionate immortal on its Council. Athena would make sure Apollo returned to his seat of power, and she would make him think he'd wanted to do so. It might take years to do it properly, but Athena had plenty of time on her hands. These things couldn't be rushed.

For now, she drew her brows together into a small frown. "I will assume you didn't mean to offend, but do refrain from comparing me to the so-called politicians of the present world order. I don't like to think about them." (Crazy politicians were like mosquitos. The current set would die off in a century or two, and replacing them would be less crazy world leaders. So it went.)

Apollo sagged like a week-old helium balloon. "Oh. Sorry."

She wasn't offended in the slightest, but Apollo didn't need to know that. Chagrin was easy to work with. "It is fine. If we could get back to the purpose of my visit."

The sun god blinked, then seemed to recall what he'd jumped over in his shock of receiving a compliment from her. "Wait, you're here to talk about my daddy issues?"

"Your avoidance issues, to be more precise."

"You're kidding. This is ridiculous. I'm a fully grown god, I don't need some curfew enforcer rounding me up for my father! Who sucks, by the way."

"I've noticed. But understand—"

"I don't have to understand _anything_." 

“Parenting is a challenging task not many are able to live up to.”

Apollo flinched back. Then he snarled, “Oh, thank you, Lady Wisdom. It must be great to be so damn _perfect_ all the time.”

Mmm. Had she struck a nerve? ( _Why wouldn't it,_  part of her hissed. _Have you forgotten Annabeth already?_ ) “What makes you think I’m being derogatory?”

"Why are you asking me trick questions like a human psychiatrist?"

"I'm merely asking you to try to see things from our father's point of view."

His outrage was transparent. "Do you hear yourself? You know very well what you're asking me to do."

"Yes. I'm urging you to summon up some compassion for a flawed being."

"Who has caused me much misery. Am I to forget the terrors he visited upon me? Forgive him, when he hasn't uttered a word of apology?"

"Forgiveness, no. Tolerance would be enough."

"I don't understand you." Apollo was truly furious now. The grass around his feet crackled and withered into sharp brown spikes. The wooden bench got scorched a smoking black. The air steamed and popped, drier than a desert at midday. "You say you disapprove of his actions, yet you advocate for him, against _me_. Aren't you supposed to be wise? Don't you recognize that what I suffered was injustice?"

"I do consider your suffering unfortunate. It is a pity that not one of us are free from the injustice he has dealt out over the millennia."

"'Us'?" Apollo spat.

"Our father's wrongs are illustrious and diverse. The queen is one such example, as are you, Hephaestus, Dionysus, and countless more. No one on Olympus is untouched."

"What are you trying to get at? That I should not be angry at you? That I should feel better about my sufferings, since everyone else has suffered as well?" The abandoned magazines on the picnic table caught fire. "News flash, Athena! _Knowledge of another's pain does not make mine disappear_."

Remaining calm was essential at this point in the proceedings. "I'm saying I understand. You have good reason to be angry."

"I—you— _of course I do_."

"Yes. It is regrettable that my duty is to relay the words of my king."

For a moment, Apollo burned like a miniature sun, his molten gold form visibly wavering. Then he exhaled, and the godly flames left him. 

“Why do you defend him?” There was genuine curiosity in Apollo’s voice. “He visited injustice upon you and your mother. He didn’t wish you to be born for fear you would be a man. Why do you labor to uphold his version of order?”

“This would be blasphemy,” Athena said, lacing her fingers together, “if we weren’t speaking in theoretical terms. But we are, and we couldn’t be further from entertaining traitorous ideas. Correct?”

“Yes,” said Apollo, impatient. “Of course.”

Either he trusted she would not tell their father of this, or he didn’t fear Zeus’s wrath. Was this courage or foolishness?

She deliberately looked away from Apollo. “My wisdom was brought into being to uphold this version of order. Our existence has its roots in our father, so if he were to fall, we would all fall with him. It is ideal for us that I maintain the order that we have. Perhaps, in another millennium or two, there will arise a new kind of order, with its own kind of wisdom. Perhaps that new model of wisdom will bring me to my knees."

She looked back at Apollo. "I am aware that epochs end. We will be no exception. But until that time comes, I will stand behind our father and preserve all that I can, so we do not fall apart prematurely.”

The sun god blinked.

Athena smiled. “I will not take offense if you do not understand.”

Apollo frowned. “. . . I think I might, a little. Birth and decay are inescapable. You feel it is your duty to protect what we have.”

. . . Well.

This was a surprise.

She had decided to use honesty as a tactic to gain his trust. It was the gesture that mattered, not her words. The mere fact that she had said _something_ to him in confidence would be useful. It didn’t matter what she chose to share, so she had been careless. She'd divulged some of her truths.

She hadn’t planned to receive understanding in return, especially from a fellow god. Anything other than eternity should have been an incomprehensible concept. She’d underestimated the breadth of Apollo's change.

"Why so surprised?" He smirked. "Told you I've become smarter."

Athena collected herself. "Indeed. It is impressive."

"Can you stop with the 'my-every-word-is-intentional' thing? It gets old." Apollo sighed. “Everything you do seems to be toward some sort of higher tactical purpose. When do you have any fun? Do you ever rest? Have self-care days?”

“I do not need self-care days to function.”

“I’m going to assume you didn’t aim that at me intentionally, because shaming me for my poor mental health would be a low blow. But seriously.” Apollo put his chin in his hands. "Do you ever take a break from being War?"

"Why would I need to take a break from myself?"

Apollo rolled his eyes. "Come on, Athena, be honest. War is your mantle, yes, but you are not War itself, as you are not Wisdom personified. They're titles. Even Ares takes some time off here and there to destress."

 _They're titles, he says. Like he doesn't know what titles are to us._  "Ares has his reasons. He needs the time off."

"Unlike you?"

"Unlike me."

Apollo stared at her, silent.

Athena abruptly felt as if she were being dissected, as if all that was personal and hidden about her were being displayed for Apollo to pick at. 

It was disturbing, this newfound empathy of Apollo's. She pondered if this was what the others felt when she directed her full attention to breaking them down into easily maneuverable pieces.

"I'm going to a concert with some of the others later this month," said Apollo. "You can come if you'd like." He climbed off the picnic table and dusted off his pants. Black sprinkles of leftover soot floated down to settle on the dried-up grass at his feet.

Apollo hesitated. "I'll consider what you said about Zeus. But I won't make any promises." Then, in a flash of golden flares, he was gone.

Athena stayed seated, mentally combing through the past few minutes and struggling to remember what the purpose of her visit had been.

 

* * *

 

("Am I a bad person?" Apollo blurted out, halfway hidden by the clearance racks.

Aphrodite dropped the pile of clothes she'd been having a small crisis over and grabbed up his face in her hands. "Who told you that? Athena?"

Apollo blinked, cheeks slightly smushed together. "No one."

"Likely story."

"It wasn't Athena. I just." He licked his lips. "She said I need to consider _his_ point of view, and I, I couldn't do it, so . . ." He squeezed his eyes shut. "I thought I was better, but I can't—I can't do it. Put myself in his shoes."

"Who says you have to put yourself in his ugly shoes? He hasn't apologized to you, has he?"

"Well, no . . ."

"Then why are you wasting time feeling bad for not understanding him? He hasn't even given you a proper apology. Forgiveness is for people who are ready to stop holding the bad guy responsible for the bad thing they did. Forgiveness takes time. Are you ready to stop feeling angry?"

". . . No."

"Then you keep holding him responsible. Stop being mean to yourself for being angry. You're a god, darling. Hold on to your anger forever, if you want to. Do you understand?"

". . . Yes.")

 

* * *

 

Athena was unnerved by the amount of turmoil Apollo had stirred up inside her. Her conversation with him prompted much thought, and she found herself drifting from college seminars to corporate meetings in a distracted haze, her mind caught in a storm of questions.

War was a complicated subject. Wisdom meant she could navigate the snarls and violence of War with at least a semblance of control. It meant when she thought there was a side that would suit victory more than the other, she could guide them to it. Her wisdom was geared, first and foremost, for a greater conflict. Interpersonal relationships held little interest for her when there was a war map to consult.

Ares was foolish enough to believe death was all there was to War, when it was so much more than that. Athena often thought of War as a giant machine made up of millions of tiny cogs, each a game-changing variable that could not be overlooked.

There were so many things that could go wrong, in a war. Too many roads leading to a purposeless bloodbath.

“Isn’t that what War is?” Ares had said once, flippant and angry, the challenge clear in his voice.

Athena had had to walk away from him.

 _I am different from you_ , was the thought she held onto. _I am better than you._ _The blood I’ve shed is different from the blood you’ve shed. There is a difference._

_I was not wrong to shed that blood. I had good reason._

_I am not wrong._

Ares was unapologetic in claiming his throne built upon death, in leaving corpses in his wake. He gave no heed to the masses that looked at him askance for the blood that covered his hands and face. Athena found herself unable to be.

She was a hypocrite, just like her father.

Wisdom meant one knew what to do. That did not necessarily mean one could act on that wisdom. No, that was left entirely up to the flawed being that carried said wisdom, and flaws were difficult to conquer, no matter how hard she tried to deny them.

Annabeth could no doubt attest to it.

Oh, Annabeth. Glorious, ingenious child.

Athena had tried, with Annabeth. She'd helped demigods on their quest to find her kidnapped daughter. She'd warned Percy Jackson to keep his trouble-attracting self far away from her child. After the Second Titan War was won, for a fleeting moment, she'd dared to hope for success in this new, emotional venture. It was slow, but she could gauge the progress. A real mother-daughter relationship. She could try that. She could have that.

Then came the Second Giant War. 

Giving Annabeth the Mark had been the wise choice. Even Athena’s splintered, malfunctioning mind had recognized that.

But had it been the right choice?

As a general of war, yes. As a mother, not so much. 

That was all that mattered, though, wasn't it? The war.

She’d had to fight an opponent that moved faster than she did, once. An _empousa_ queen.

It was rare that Athena was less capable than her opponent in any field, so she remembered the fight well. After a prolonged bout of trying to trick the annoyingly quick attacker onto her spear and meeting only air with each strike, she’d let the queen stab her with her sword, then grabbed her arm and yanked her closer, driving the sword deeper into her own stomach. Ichor had spurted up, a keen pain shooting through her like a lightning strike, and the enemy had flinched in surprise from making actual contact.

Taking advantage of the split second of startled imbalance, Athena had swept her knife across the neck and parted the queen's head from her shoulders.

Victory required sacrifice. She did what had to be done.

Self-doubt was a luxury she couldn't afford, and decisions made were decisions made. If she began hesitating on the difficult decisions when Wisdom was needed, it would save no one.

No, she would not approach Annabeth. There was no logic in why she had to see her, only sentiment. She had a bigger war to fight.

(And really, had she ever truly cared for the child? Had her fondness been for a daughter, or for an instrumental cog in the machine that would win her the war?)

There was a place for Athena carved out of marble, and in order to stand there, she had to be _correct_. Every step, every turn, she had to do it deliberately, and she could not be wrong. Such was the price of her pedestal.

Ares was right. She was covered in as much blood as he was. It was just that her blood was used to dye her dress and paint her throne. Her blood was the direct result of her wisdom, and when wisdom meant victory and victory meant blood, people tended to overlook the blood and raise a statue for victory.

Where Ares’s blood was a warning sign, a banner strung up to advertise the dangers of war, Athena’s blood was perceived as a symbol of intelligence, of superiority. Her blood was glorified by those who should know better.

Sometimes she wondered what the brand-new order that would overthrow Olympus would look like. What that Wisdom would look like. 

She fantasized about it. When the day came, she would fight her fiercest against the justice of a rising world order. She would fight and she would lose, but part of her looked forward to the end. When responsibilities both wanted and unwanted left her shoulders, would she still be herself enough to look her newborn counterpart in the eyes and pull them closer to whisper, weighed down with pride and sorrow and all the complications newborn deities had no hope of understanding, “I was justice once”?

There was no way to know for certain. But until then, this world was hers to preserve. She would not fail.

There was logic in accepting Apollo’s invitation. Going to a mortal concert as a group could engender a sense of camaraderie among the participants. Cultivating trust certainly couldn't hurt, them being immortals who still had a number of wars left to fight together. 

(And if there was sentiment involved—possible companionship, casual enjoyment, a truly rare opportunity to step back and _breathe_ —there was no need to think deeper on it.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To me, Athena and Ares are static deities. Whereas Artemis and Hermes embrace change and Aphrodite seriously considers it, the war gods go through little to no changes. They're obstinate, they're afraid, and above all, they refuse to entertain even a sliver of guilt for what they represent.
> 
> I really loved writing Athena, even if she was insanely difficult to write. Sorry for taking so long, and thank you so much to all the wonderful people who left kudos and comments! Positive feedback is a heady energy drink. I hope you know your encouragement fueled me to fight my writing block!
> 
> Next chapter, Hephaestus.


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